Chapter 13 Professional Tables and Visualizations

Tables and visualizations are analytical displays that determine which comparisons an audience can see. This chapter develops principles for choosing accurate encodings, reducing clutter, directing attention, presenting uncertainty, mapping responsibly, supporting accessibility, and designing dashboards that serve defined decisions.

Learning outcomes

After completing this chapter, you should be able to:

  • choose a display that matches the comparison and audience;
  • design tables for lookup, comparison, and decision support;
  • reduce clutter without removing necessary context;
  • use position, contrast, annotation, and grouping intentionally;
  • display uncertainty and geographic information responsibly; and
  • evaluate a visual for accuracy, readability, and accessibility.

Key terms

  • Visual encoding: The use of position, length, colour, shape, size, or another visual property to represent data.

  • Data-ink: The portion of a display used to represent data rather than decoration or redundant structure.

  • Preattentive attribute: A visual feature, such as strong contrast or orientation, that can be noticed rapidly before deliberate attention.

  • Gestalt principle: A principle describing how people visually group and interpret elements through properties such as proximity, similarity, enclosure, and connection.

  • Annotation: Text or a graphical marker added to explain, highlight, or contextualize part of a display.

  • Direct label: A label placed beside the value or series it identifies, reducing the need to look back and forth to a legend.

  • Accessibility: The quality of being usable and understandable by people with diverse visual, cognitive, physical, and technological needs.

  • Explanatory title: A title that states the main conclusion or comparison communicated by a visual.