Data Visualization: a successful design process
Data Visualization: a successful design process
1st Edition
Published on 13. January 2025
206 pages
978-1-84969-347-9 (ISBN)
Description
A structured design approach to equip you with the knowledge of how to successfully undertake any data visualization challenge efficiently and effectively.Key Features - A portable, versatile and flexible data visualization design approach that will help you navigate the complex path towards success
- Explains the many different reasons for creating visualizations and identifies the key parameters which lead to very different design options
- Thorough explanation of the many visual variables and visualization taxonomy to provide you with a menu of creative options
Book DescriptionDo you want to create more attractive charts? Or do you have huge data sets and need to unearth the key insights in a visual manner? Data visualization is the representation and presentation of data, using proven design techniques to bring alive the patterns, stories and key insights locked away."Data Visualization: a Successful Design Process" explores the unique fusion of art and science that is data visualization; a discipline for which instinct alone is insufficient for you to succeed in enabling audiences to discover key trends, insights and discoveries from your data. This book will equip you with the key techniques required to overcome contemporary data visualization challenges. You'll discover a proven design methodology that helps you develop invaluable knowledge and practical capabilities.You'll never again settle for a default Excel chart or resort to "fancy-looking" graphs. You will be able to work from the starting point of acquiring, preparing and familiarizing with your data, right through to concept design. Choose your "killer" visual representation to engage and inform your audience."Data Visualization: a Successful Design Process" will inspire you to relish any visualization project with greater confidence and bullish know-how; turning challenges into exciting design opportunities.What you will learn - A comprehensive and contemporary introduction to data driven visualization design and the most effective approaches to tackle any design challenge
- How to achieve maximum impact with designs that engage on an aesthetic level and perform on a functional one
- Foundation understanding of the human visual system
- Identifying the purpose of your visualization and your projects parameters to determine overriding design considerations across your project s execution
- How to develop analytical questions and identify a visual narrative as you immerse yourself in your data, familiarizing with its inherent qualities
- Apply critical thinking to visualization design and get intimate with your dataset to identify its potential visual characteristics
- Appreciating the importance of an editorial approach to design and best practice approaches for tackling different data types and problem contexts
- A thorough overview of the anatomy of a data visualization design and a menu of the most important and innovative visualization methods
- Overview of the essential visualization tools and resources
- Profile of some of the most impressive and inspiring contemporary visualization projects
Who this book is forThis book is for anyone who has responsibility for, or is interested in trying to find innovative and effective ways to visually analyze and communicate data.There is no skill, no knowledge and no role-based pre-requisites or expectations of anyone reading this book.
- Explains the many different reasons for creating visualizations and identifies the key parameters which lead to very different design options
- Thorough explanation of the many visual variables and visualization taxonomy to provide you with a menu of creative options
Book DescriptionDo you want to create more attractive charts? Or do you have huge data sets and need to unearth the key insights in a visual manner? Data visualization is the representation and presentation of data, using proven design techniques to bring alive the patterns, stories and key insights locked away."Data Visualization: a Successful Design Process" explores the unique fusion of art and science that is data visualization; a discipline for which instinct alone is insufficient for you to succeed in enabling audiences to discover key trends, insights and discoveries from your data. This book will equip you with the key techniques required to overcome contemporary data visualization challenges. You'll discover a proven design methodology that helps you develop invaluable knowledge and practical capabilities.You'll never again settle for a default Excel chart or resort to "fancy-looking" graphs. You will be able to work from the starting point of acquiring, preparing and familiarizing with your data, right through to concept design. Choose your "killer" visual representation to engage and inform your audience."Data Visualization: a Successful Design Process" will inspire you to relish any visualization project with greater confidence and bullish know-how; turning challenges into exciting design opportunities.What you will learn - A comprehensive and contemporary introduction to data driven visualization design and the most effective approaches to tackle any design challenge
- How to achieve maximum impact with designs that engage on an aesthetic level and perform on a functional one
- Foundation understanding of the human visual system
- Identifying the purpose of your visualization and your projects parameters to determine overriding design considerations across your project s execution
- How to develop analytical questions and identify a visual narrative as you immerse yourself in your data, familiarizing with its inherent qualities
- Apply critical thinking to visualization design and get intimate with your dataset to identify its potential visual characteristics
- Appreciating the importance of an editorial approach to design and best practice approaches for tackling different data types and problem contexts
- A thorough overview of the anatomy of a data visualization design and a menu of the most important and innovative visualization methods
- Overview of the essential visualization tools and resources
- Profile of some of the most impressive and inspiring contemporary visualization projects
Who this book is forThis book is for anyone who has responsibility for, or is interested in trying to find innovative and effective ways to visually analyze and communicate data.There is no skill, no knowledge and no role-based pre-requisites or expectations of anyone reading this book.
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Book
12/2012
Packt Publishing
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Person
Kirk Andy :
Andy Kirk is a freelance data visualization design consultant, training provider, and editor of the popular data visualization blog, visualisingdata.com. After graduating from Lancaster University with a B.Sc. (Hons) degree in Operational Research, he spent over a decade at a number of the UK's largest organizations in a variety of business analysis and information management roles. Late 2006 provided Andy with a career-changing "eureka" moment through the serendipitous discovery of data visualization and he has passionately pursued this subject ever since, completing an M.A. (with Distinction) at the University of Leeds along the way. In February 2010, he launched visualisingdata.com with a mission to provide readers with inspiring insights into the contemporary techniques, resources, applications, and best practices around this increasingly popular field. His design consultancy work and training courses extend this ambition, helping organizations of all shapes, sizes, and industries to enhance the analysis and communication of their data to maximize impact. This book aims to pass on some of the expertise Andy has built up over these years to provide readers with an informative and helpful guide to succeeding in the challenging but exciting world of data visualization design.
Andy Kirk is a freelance data visualization design consultant, training provider, and editor of the popular data visualization blog, visualisingdata.com. After graduating from Lancaster University with a B.Sc. (Hons) degree in Operational Research, he spent over a decade at a number of the UK's largest organizations in a variety of business analysis and information management roles. Late 2006 provided Andy with a career-changing "eureka" moment through the serendipitous discovery of data visualization and he has passionately pursued this subject ever since, completing an M.A. (with Distinction) at the University of Leeds along the way. In February 2010, he launched visualisingdata.com with a mission to provide readers with inspiring insights into the contemporary techniques, resources, applications, and best practices around this increasingly popular field. His design consultancy work and training courses extend this ambition, helping organizations of all shapes, sizes, and industries to enhance the analysis and communication of their data to maximize impact. This book aims to pass on some of the expertise Andy has built up over these years to provide readers with an informative and helpful guide to succeeding in the challenging but exciting world of data visualization design.
Content
- Intro
- Data Visualization: a successful design process
- Table of Contents
- Data Visualization: a successful design process
- Credits
- About the Author
- About the Reviewers
- www.PacktPub.com
- Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more
- Why Subscribe?
- Free Access for Packt account holders
- Preface
- What this book covers
- What you need for this book
- Who this book is for
- Conventions
- Reader feedback
- Customer support
- Errata
- Piracy
- Questions
- 1. The Context of Data Visualization
- Exploiting the digital age
- Visualization as a discovery tool
- The bedrock of visualization knowledge
- Defining data visualization
- Visualization skills for the masses
- The data visualization methodology
- Visualization design objectives
- Strive for form and function
- Justifying the selection of everything we do
- Creating accessibility through intuitive design
- Never deceive the receiver
- Summary
- 2. Setting the Purpose and Identifying Key Factors
- Clarifying the purpose of your project
- The reason for existing
- The intended effect
- Establishing intent - the visualization's function
- When the function is to explain
- When the function is to explore
- When the function is to exhibit data
- Establishing intent - the visualization's tone
- Pragmatic and analytical
- Emotive and abstract
- Key factors surrounding a visualization project
- The "eight hats" of data visualization design
- The initiator
- The data scientist
- The journalist
- The computer scientist
- The designer
- The cognitive scientist
- The communicator
- The project manager
- Summary
- 3. Demonstrating Editorial Focus and Learning About Your Data
- The importance of editorial focus
- Preparing and familiarizing yourself with your data
- Refining your editorial focus
- Using visual analysis to find stories
- An example of finding and telling stories
- Summary
- 4. Conceiving and Reasoning Visualization Design Options
- Data visualization design is all about choices
- Some helpful tips
- The visualization anatomy - data representation
- Choosing the correct visualization method
- Considering the physical properties of our data
- Determining the degree of accuracy in interpretation
- Creating an appropriate design metaphor
- Choosing the final solution
- The visualization anatomy - data presentation
- The use of color
- To represent data
- To bring the data layer to the fore
- To conform to design requirements
- Creating interactivity
- Annotation
- Arrangement
- Summary
- 5. Taxonomy of Data Visualization Methods
- Data visualization methods
- Choosing the appropriate chart type
- Comparing categories
- Dot plot
- Bar chart (or column chart)
- Floating bar (or Gantt chart)
- Pixelated bar chart
- Histogram
- Slopegraph (or bumps chart or table chart)
- Radial chart
- Glyph chart
- Sankey diagram
- Area size chart
- Small multiples (or trellis chart)
- Word cloud
- Assessing hierarchies and part-to-whole relationships
- Pie chart
- Stacked bar chart (or stacked column chart)
- Square pie (or unit chart or waffle chart)
- Tree map
- Circle packing diagram
- Bubble hierarchy
- Tree hierarchy
- Showing changes over time
- Line chart
- Sparklines
- Area chart
- Horizon chart
- Stacked area chart
- Stream graph
- Candlestick chart (or box and whiskers plot, OHLC chart)
- Barcode chart
- Flow map
- Plotting connections and relationships
- Scatter plot
- Bubble plot
- Scatter plot matrix
- Heatmap (or matrix chart)
- Parallel sets (or parallel coordinates)
- Radial network (or chord diagram)
- Network diagram (or force-directed/node-link network)
- Mapping geo-spatial data
- Choropleth map
- Dot plot map
- Bubble plot map
- Isarithmic map (or contour map or topological map)
- Particle flow map
- Cartogram
- Dorling cartogram
- Network connection map
- Summary
- 6. Constructing and Evaluating Your Design Solution
- For constructing visualizations, technology matters
- Visualization software, applications, and programs
- Charting and statistical analysis tools
- Programming environments
- Tools for mapping
- Other specialist tools
- The construction process
- Approaching the finishing line
- Post-launch evaluation
- Developing your capabilities
- Practice, practice, practice!
- Evaluating the work of others
- Publishing and sharing your output
- Immerse yourself into learning about the field
- Summary
- Index
