Matthew Henry John Bartlett

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Monday 20 August, 02012

Principles for infographics from The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

by Matthew Bartlett @ 9:47 pm

Those principles espoused by Edward Tufte in The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (first edition, 1983) that I found helpful:

Excellence in statistical graphics consists of complex ideas communicated with clarity, precision and efficiency. Graphical displays should:

  • show the data
  • induce the viewer to think about the substance rather than about methodology, graphic design, the technology of graphic production, or something else
  • avoid distorting what the data have to say
  • present many numbers in a small space
  • make large data sets coherent
  • encourage the eye to compare different pieces of data
  • reveal the data at several levels of detail, from a broad overview to the fine structure
  • serve a reasonably clear purpose: description, exploration, tabulation or decoration (p.13)

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