DATA VISUALIZATION

Overview

Popular Methods and Techniques, softwares and

algorithms for Information Visualization.

Evaluation for Data Visualization.

Visualization of survey.
Overview
Data visualization | Information visualization

Information visualization presumes

that "visual representations and
interaction techniques take
advantage of the human eye’s
broad bandwidth pathway into the
mind to allow users to see, explore,
and understand large amounts of
information at once.Information
visualization focused on the
creation of approaches for
conveying abstract information in
intuitive ways.
In scientific community

Data visualization is closely related

to information graphics, information
visualization, scientific visualization,
exploratory data analysis and
statistical graphics.

In the new millennium, data

visualization has become an active
area of research, teaching and
development.
According to Post et al. (2002),
it has united scientific and
information visualization.
Types of data

Numbers

Quantitative Quantity

Concrete

Non-measurable

Qualitative Non-quanifiable

Abstract
3 components of visualization

Sentence

Graphics

Table
Popular Methods and
Techniques, softwares and
algorithms for Information
Visualization.
Popular Methods and Techniques for information
Visualization

Cartogram

Concept Mapping

Dendrogram

Graph Drawing

Heatmap

Hyperbolic Tree

Treemapping
Cartogram

A map on which statistical information is

shown in diagrammatic form.

Softwares Carto3F

ScapeToad

Cartogram Processing Tool

Dougenik

Algorithms Polyfocal projection

Rubber map method

Projector method
Concept map
A concept map or conceptual diagram is a
diagram that depicts suggested relationships
between concepts. It is a graphical tool that
instructional designers, engineers, technical
writers, and others use to organize and
structure knowledge.

Softwares IHMC CmapTools computer program.

Mindmup

Edraw

Visual Concept Explorer

Algorithms Kohonen’s self-organizing feature map

Pathfinder Networks
Dendrogram
A dendrogram is a diagram representing a
tree. This diagrammatic representation is
frequently used in different contexts:

in hierarchical clustering,

in computational biology,

in phylogenetics

Softwares Python

Edraw

Excel

Algorithms Cluster Analysis

Treemap

Treemapping is a method for displaying

hierarchical data using nested figures, usually
rectangles.

Softwares Java
Treeplotter
Opentreemap
Infogram

Algorithms Tilling algorithms

Binary tree
Mixed Treemaps
Slice and dice
Squarified
Graph drawing

Graph Drawing is concerned with the

geometric representation of graphs and
constitutes the algorithmic core of Network
Visualization

Softwares Biofabric
Sytoscape
Gephy
Graph tool
Graphviz

Spring embedder
Algorithms Straight line embedding
Tutte embedding
Heat Map

A heat map is a graphical

representation of data where the
individual values contained in a matrix
are represented as colors.

Softwares R
Gnuplot
Google fusion tables
Highcharts

Algorithms Linear interpolation

Gaussian blurring
Cell averaging
Hyperbplic tree

A hyperbolic tree is an information

visualization and graph drawing method
inspired by hyperbolic geometry.

A basic hyperbolic tree. Nodes in focus are

placed in the center and given more room,
while out-of-focus nodes are compressed near
the boundaries.
.

Softwares GraphViz
Hypergraph
Treeviz
yEd
Popular Methods
and Techniques for
data Visualization.
Popular Methods and Techniques for data Visualization

Charts

Plots

Maps

Diagrams and matrices

Charts

Charts vary from bar and line charts that show relationship between elements over time to pie
charts that demonstrate the components or proportions between the elements of one whole.
Plots

Plots allow to distribute two or more data sets over a 2D or even 3D space to show the
relationship between these sets and the parameters on the plot.
Diagrams and Matrices

Diagrams are usually used to demonstrate complex data relationships and links and include
various types of data on one visualization. They can be hierarchical, multidimensional, tree-like.
Matrix is a big data visualization technique that allows to reflect the correlations between
multiple constantly updating (steaming) data sets.
Maps

Maps allow to position elements on relevant objects and areas - geographical maps, building
plans, website layouts, etc. Among the most popular map visualizations are heat maps, dot
distribution maps, cartograms.
Popular tools for data Visualization

Easy to use For coders For complex

Data viz

Tableau Plotly Power BI

Visme Sisense Kibana

Fusion Charts IBM Analytics Grafana

Datawrapper

Zingchart
Data Visualization and Human Perception

Data visualization is effective because it shifts the balance between perception and
cognition to take fuller advantage of the brain's abilities. Seeing (i.e visual perception) which
is handled by the visual cortex located in the rear of the brain, is extremely fast and efficient.
We see immediately, with little effort. Thinking (i.e. cognition), which is handled primarily by
the cerebral cortex in the front of the brain, is much slower and less efficient. Traditional
data sensemaking and presentation methods require conscious thinking for almost all of
the work. Data visualization shifts the balance toward greater use of visual perception,
taking advantage of our powerful eyes whenever possible.
Data Visualization and Human Perception

New insights into visual perception and cognition are arising from work in various
disciplines besides information visualization, such as human factors and human-computer
interaction, but none are more ground-breaking than those arising from the cognitive
sciences, especially cognitive psychology. Today, with new and improved technologies and
methodologies for brain exploration, opportunities to improve the perceptual effectiveness
of data visualization abound. Two areas of study in particular are especially useful:

● preattentive visual processing

● mechanisms and limitations of attention and memory
Data Visualization and Human Perception

One of the great strengths of data visualization is our ability to process visual information
much more rapidly than verbal information. Preattentive visual processing is that part that
automatically occurs in the brain prior to conscious awareness. It consists of several stages,
each handled by specialized neurons that are tuned to detect particular attributes of the
visual information contained in light that reflects off the surfaces of objects in the world,
which is then stitched together into a picture in our mind's eye of that object. We can use
these basic attributes, such as differences in length, size, hue, color intensity, angle, texture,
shape, and so on, as the building blocks of data visualization. When we do so in an informed
manner, we have the ability to transfer much of the work that is needed to decode the
contents of a visual display, such as a graph, from the slower conscious, energy intensive
parts of the brain to the faster parts of the brain that require less energy, which results in
more efficient cognition..
Data Visualization and Human Perception
Studies in attention and memory are revealing our surprisingly limited ability to hold
multiple items simultaneously in awareness. This recognition leads us to augment attention
and memory by relying on external forms of information storage. One of the most powerful
ways to do this is to encode information visually, which allows more information to be
chunked together into the limited slots available in working memory. Another method is to
place several views of information in front of our eyes at one time, thus extending our ability
to explore data multidimensional and from multiple perspectives to make comparisons and
see connections to a degree that would be impossible if we had to consume these views
one at a time, due to the limits of working memory. Good data visualization techniques and
technologies, properly used, can extend our thinking into new realms of analytical
sensemaking, and we are still only beginning to tap into this potential.
Pre attentive attributes
Pre attentive attributes
Pre attentive attributes
Evaluation for Data
Visualization.
Evaluation for data Visualization

Evaluation of the potential effectiveness of a visualization technique or approach is a

ubiquitous process that takes a range of forms, from informal, subjective judgments that we
use (consciously or unconsciously) to converge on our design decisions to formal observer
experiments intended, for example, to objectively assess the extent to which the use of a
particular new visualization technique (as opposed to a previous or default approach) can
enhance performance on a set of specific tasks.

The visualization community has produced a wealth of techniques and algorithms for the
display of 2D and 3D scalar, vector, and tensor fields. Scientists have provided data sets and
questions to be answered.The field is now poised to go from art to science, by creating a set
of standard data sets, questions, and evaluation user studies against which existing and new
techniques can be tested

With a large collection of developed algorithms and techniques at hand, visualization

researchers are now coming to grips with the fact that it is not devising an algorithm that is
the critical problem, but rather how to map data to display in such a way that people can
see important patterns. In other words it is about perception. We inherit more than a
century of human vision research and in many cases this scientific literature is a treasure
trove of information as to what techniques will be effective. In other cases the methods of
vision research are best used for evaluating a new display technique.
Pathos in visualization

The potential for visualizations to bring an

emotional capacity to data

Buchanan identifies three elements that Similar to a photograph’s relationship to

form a design argument, elements of reality, visualizations do not capture
which are Aristotle’s three modes of reality as found in data but rather
persuasion applied to design studies (1985). present a particular angle on it.
The logos of design, technological Depending on the intention of the
reasoning, is argued to be the foundation designer, visualizations can be used to
of the design argument. Products influence, manipulate, and empower
persuade in this way when ETHOS viewers in many ways”
character of the speaker LOGOS logic of
the message PATHOS emotions of the
audience
 Deception Storytelling

This is in part due to early theory emphasizing Hullman and Diakopoulos devise an
visualization as an analytic tool, such as Card analytical framework to better
et al. (1999), which stresses instant clarity and understand the rhetorical techniques in
minimal intervention by the designer (Tufte narrative visualizations. They identify four
2001). Under this perspective, any bias editorial layers where rhetorical decisions
introduced by the designer is expected to are made: data, visual representation,
hinder the effectiveness of the visualization. textual annotations, and interactivity.
Technique categories in their framework
include information access rhetoric,
provenance rhetoric, mapping rhetoric,
linguistic rhetoric, and procedural
rhetoric.
Evaluation for data Visualization

Komlodi and colleagues summarized the techniques on evaluating information visualization

in the four main areas of usability evaluation, controlled experiments comparing design
elements, controlled experiments comparing two or more visualizations or tools, and case
studies

Usability testing or evaluation can be distinguished in two approaches depending on the

prototypes’ development progress: formative testing and summative testing . Formative
testing is used in early stages of the development to discover usability problems.
Additionally, heuristics have been used in the past to evaluate information visualizations.

. The conventional usability measures are effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction.

According to the ISO standard effectiveness describes the accuracy of goal achievement,
efficiency measures the relation of effort and effectiveness with respect to goal achievement,
and satisfaction comprises perceived comfort as well as absence of discomfort.
Evaluation for data Visualization

n summary, it can be said that there are established methods for evaluating information
visualizations and proper metrics for evaluating their effectiveness, efficiency, and
acceptance. The most common way to evaluate information visualizations with an advanced
developing progress are summative evaluations, in particular by comparing the visualization
tools in controlled experiments. Perceptual speed and visual working memory can be
evaluated through the completion time of tasks compared to a baseline [29, 10] and refer to
effectiveness and efficiency of the visualizations. Furthermore, the aspects of satisfaction or
acceptance can be gathered and evaluated through appropriate questionnaires that may
involve the verbal working memory
Heuristic Evaluation for data Visualization

N1- Visibility of system status;

N2- Match between system and the real world;
N3- User control and freedom;
N4- Consistency and standards;
N5- Error prevention;
N6- Recognition rather than recall;
N7- Flexibility and efficiency of use;
N8- Aesthetic and minimalist design;
N9- Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors;
N10- Help and documentation.
F1- Information coding;
F2- Minimal actions;
F3- Flexibility;
F4- Orientation and help;
F5- Spatial organization;
F6- Consistency;
F7- Recognition rather than recall;
F8- Prompting;
F9- Remove the extraneous;
F10- Data set reduction
Evaluation for data Visualization

Z1- Ensure visual variable has sufficient length;

Z2- Don’t expect a reading order from color;
Z3- Color perception varies with size of colored item;
Z4- Local contrast affects color & gray perception;
Z5- Consider people with color blindness;
Z6- Preattentive benefits increase with field of view;
Z7- Quantitative assessment requires position or size variation;
Z8- Preserve data to graphic dimensionality;
Z9- Put the most data in the least space;
Z10- Remove the extraneous (ink);
Z11- Consider Gestalt Laws;
Z12- Provide multiple levels of detail;
Z13- Integrate text wherever relevant
Visualization of
survey.
Chart Types

Binary

Rating scale

Multiple choice

Single choice

Demographic results
Binary results
Rating scale result
Demographic result
Multiple Choice Result
Infographics Types

A survey results infographic uses a combination of charts, graphic elements,

and annotations tell a story.

Single column summary infographics
Single column summary infographics
Infographs- Rules for better communication

Simplify the data to create clarity.

Don’t embellish your infographic with unnecessary decorations.

Apply style choices uniformly throughout the infographic.

Include links to data sources in the infographic footer

Clearly label charts to provide context and prevent misinterpretation

Visual Principles as
markers for Data Viz
Dominant Gestalt principle in case of Data Visualisation

A bar chart or a line chart only uses a few gestalt principles, usually based on shape and negative space.
Coupled with our own familiarity with bar charts and line charts as abstractions, it’s not such a big deal. But
complex data visualization methods use more and different channels for expressing patterns in the data and
thus provide more opportunity to confuse readers.
Dominant Gestalt principle in case of Data Visualisation | Similarity

Some of these unintentional graphical

signals are already present in this simple
figure: the implied columns and rows
seeming to indicate 8 or 5 other groups;
The color red, because of its hue, implies
activation, while the subdued gray implies
deactivation; The memory of all circles
being initially gray with only half
transitioning to red reinforces this
activation signal.
 Dominant Gestalt principle in case of Data Visualisation | Proximity

In the case of ordering by value, bars

are nearest to the bars that they have
similar values with, while categorical
ordering groups bars based on
attribute similarity not conveyed in
the length of the bar.

One major challenge of deploying more

complex data visualization methods,
such as force-directed networks, sankey
diagrams, or circle-packing, is that often
times with such charts proximity does
not mean similarity. Instead, similarity is
graphically denoted with a container or a
visible line connecting one element to
another. This spatial problem is difficult
to solve, especially with complex
datasets, and must be planned for in
deploying any data visualization.
Markers used for better data visualization

Explicitly: Data needs to be exposed cleanly and clearly and capable of being interrogated by the reader.
Charts should be optimized for query or validation and authors of charts that are good at this understand
the difference between accuracy and precision.

Implicitly: Charts should be distinctive if their dataset is distinctive or stylistically related if the data/view is
related. Above all style should be intentional, purposeful and thematically appropriate. Titles, colors and
other graphical design elements should have well-reasoned justification for their choices and not be the
result of defaults or superficial decisions.
Movement and implication of movement can improve the ability of readers to identify patterns being
displayed but can also damage that ability if not mindfully implemented. Understanding the gestalt
principles related to movement and implied movement is critical to well-crafted data visualization.
Basic principles for using color in data VIz

1. The Color Wheel

Use the color wheel to create matching color schemes that are monochromatic, analogous, complementary,
split complementary, triadic, and/or tetradic.

2. Four or Fewer

In most cases, create your design using a color scheme of four or fewer colors.

3. Emotion-Saturation

Use dark, desaturated colors to express serious and professional. Use bright, desaturated colors to express
friendly and professional. Use fully saturated colors to grab attention or to appeal to children.
Basic principles for using contrast in data VIz

1. Color

Use contrasting colors for clarity and visual interest. If it’s a different color, it should be obviously different.

2. Size

Make the most important thing on the document the biggest and boldest. Use clearly different sizes for
fonts and icons. If they’re meant to be different sizes, they should be significantly different.

3. Typefaces

Use different font families when using more than one font. Contrast serif body text, for example, with a sans
serif or script heading. If they’re different typefaces, they should be very different.
4. Highlighting

Highlight no more than 10% of objects on a document. Make headings and important text and objects stand
out by using boldface, color, italics, underlining, reverse type, and so forth. Only use two or three techniques
at once and don’t use ALL CAPS to highlight.

5. Overlays

When overlaying text on top of an image or watermark, contrast the background with the text significantly
to avoid conflicts or visual noise.
Basic principles for using Repetition in data VIz

1. Repeat Within

Repeat all visual elements within a single document. Different typefaces, colors, sizes, shapes, layouts and so
forth should be limited in number and repeated throughout.

2. Repeat Across

Repeat all visual elements across multiple documents to create continuity, clarity, and branding between
documents.

3. Visual Cues

Consider designing visual cues—shapes, logos, icons—that repeat from page to page (or slide to slide) to
make a document seem uniform and organized.
4. Personality

Keep the personality and/or professionalism of the document consistent by repeating styles in diction, tone,
layout, and other content.

5. Style Guide

Develop and use style guides in order to repeat features of a brand identity, including color, layout,
typography, paper weight, logo use, and so forth.
Basic principles for using Arrangement in data VIz

1. Purpose

Give purpose and show relationships to every object on a page. Avoid arbitrary placement or “floating”
objects that don’t seem visually connected to anything else.

2. Alignment

Everything on a page should be aligned to something else. Avoid center-alignment for most layouts and text.

3. Proximity

Put related items close in proximity and unrelated items apart from each other. Avoid randomizing
placements of objects and text on a page.
4. Stability

Arrange objects to show clear stability (or lack thereof). Objects that are flat and horizontal appear stable and
calm. Vertical arrangement can appear more active. Tilted objects can appear in motion.

5. Position

Position objects strategically. Space implies time. Tilted objects imply instability. Objects in upper-half imply
free and happy. Know the position’s purpose.
Basic principles for using Ar”WHY” in data VIz

1. Expectation

Match or intentionally interrupt your audience’s expectation(s). Use branding, document genres, tone, colors,
and so forth that align with what your audience expects or hopes to see.

2. Credible Complexity

Increase complexity of a design or content to heighten credibility of data. Simplify a document to make it
seem more elegant or sophisticated. Make a document busy to make products or services appear
inexpensive.
3. Metaphor

Apply diverse visual figures of speech—such as metaphor, pun, hyperbole, metonymy, and so forth—to
increase comprehensibility, creative interest, and meaningful depth of your communication’s purpose.

4. Propositional Density

Simplify visual design elements while increasing communicative propositions (or ideas to be
communicated). Divide the number of propositions by the number of visual elements and seek for a
number greater than 1.

5. Rhetorical Four

Make your document reach its audience through ethos (credibility), pathos (emotion), logos (logic), and
kairos (timing).
Basic principles for using Organization in data VIz

1. Five Hat Racks (LATCH)

Know the most effective way(s) to organize your information (there are only five): by location/space, by
alphabet, by time/chronology, by category, or by hierarchy.

2. Hierarchy

Know the hierarchy of importance of your information. Give visual cues to guide your audience through the
most important information to the least important information.
3. Satisfice-ability

Organize document so that a person can scan information quickly and in sections. Recognize that people
rarely read entire documents—they scan and satisfice.

4. Rule of Thirds

To increase visual interest, divide your document into nine equal segments of space (in thirds both
horizontally and vertically) and place most important or interesting details on the intersections where
invisible lines divide the segments.

5. Bleeds

To increase aesthetic interest and reduce visual noise, move the edges of some objects and images off the
edges of the page.
Basic principles for using Negative Space in data VIz

1. 1 + 1=3

Pay attention to the shapes you create between two objects. Recognize that every time you design two
objects, a third shape is being designed between the two.

2. Multi-stability

Increase interest in some logo designs by making them multi-stable—where negative space appears to
become the figure or central visual piece, then recedes to the background like in the face-vase image above.

3. Empty Noise

Observe all empty space and identify if it is purposeful and effective. If the white or empty space doesn’t
appear designed or intentional, it will create unintentional visual noise and reduce credibility.
4. Figure-Ground

Keep visual designs stable by making clear distinctions between figures and backgrounds. Objects in lower
regions or that overlay other objects appear in front and are perceived as more important.

5. Margins

Be intentional about your margins. Avoid thin or awkward margins between objects and text and the edges
of pages that inadvertently create shapes and paths.
Basic principles for using Typography in data VIz

1. Two Fonts

Most documents should use two different fonts (rarely one or three or more), typically from two different font
families. Use one font for headings and titles and the other for body text.

2. Font Families

Know your font families and use them appropriately. Most fonts can be labeled as one of the following: serif,
sans-serif, script, decorative, or grunge.

3. Personality

Apply the appropriate font to the personality of your document. Recognize that subtle nuances in typefaces
make big differences in the personality of your document. Avoid default and overused fonts.
4. Legibility

Be sure your font is legible for the specific word(s) you are displaying. Some typefaces work well for particular
words but not for others. If a word is real common, you can use less legible fonts. For names, use only very
legible fonts.

5. Readability

Increase readability by increasing line spacing, using legible fonts, shortening line length, and using heavy
enough weight to contrast background.
Basic principles for using Iconography in data VIz

1. The Four Types

Use icons to make reading quicker, more recognizable, engaging, and universal. Know the four icon types
(similar, example, symbolic, and arbitrary) and apply the appropriate one to your communication purpose.

2. Brand Recognition

Use icons and shapes to enhance immediate recognition. While logos are useful to brands, icons and shapes
can also be useful for non-brand-centric designs like wayfinding signs, handouts, and poster campaigns.

3. Mnemonics

Use mnemonic devices in icons to make them more clearly linked to a brand name or idea (and thus easier
to remember).
4. Lines and Paths

Use lines, arrows, and other pathway-creating visual tools to guide a viewer’s eyes and mind in specific,
important, and intentional directions. Avoid lines and arrows where importance is already obvious.

5. Pictographs

Apply pictorial versions of data in charts and graphs to make information more readable and appealing to
large audiences.
Basic principles for using Photography in data VIz

1. Picture Superiority

For most designs, use as many pictures and icons as possible as long as the important information can be
made clear and represented ethically. Audiences will remember communications with images up to 60%
more than ones without images.

2. Resolution

Use the appropriate resolution for the specific medium (72dpi for most digital and 300dpi for most print). Do
not use images that are pixilated or distorted in any way; your document will lose immediate credibility.
3. Face-ism Ratio

When using pictures of people, increase the size of the face (and remove bodily features) to communicate
personality and intellect. To communicate health, vitality, and sensuality, decrease the size of the face and
include more body.

4. Direction

Make sure all faces look toward the inside or spine of the document. Avoid having images of people looking
in the direction that goes off the page.

5. Style Match

When using multiple photos in the same document, make sure that their photographic styles, including
lighting, position, and colors are consistent.
Principle of attention|The three Brains: Head, Heart and Gut

The human brain is widely viewed as having three distinct regions: the reptilian (“primal” or basal ganglia);
the emotional (“paleomammalian” or limbic system); and the rational (“neomammalian” or neocortex).
Common evolutionary theory suggests that these parts of the brain are progressively complex, meaning
that our “old” brain, the primal one, functions almost entirely on instinct (protects us from danger, helps us
survive); the limbic system imbues us with more complex emotion (such as happiness, sadness, disgust, or
contempt); and the neocortex sophistocatedly helps us complete complex tasks (like making decisions,
solving problems, or reasoning). As it turns out, grabbing attention follows a similar progression in the brain.
First, we want to cause people to instinctively look or react. Second, we want to get them emotionally
involved. And third, we want to then help them process and reason with the information.
Principle of attention| Danger, Food, Sex, Faces, Stories and Movement.

As it may be inferred from the description of the primal part of the brain, research has shown that people’s
attention tends to be initially hooked by those things that instinctively help our species survive. It’s almost
impossible not to look, for example, when we see a car accident on the side of the road. Indications of
danger (even if previous or relinquishing) make us pay attention. Likewise, we need food to survive and sex
to keep our species from extinction, so we will instinctively pay attention to pictures of food or attractive and
sensual people. Research has also shown that people tend to be initially hooked by images of human faces,
storytelling, and and things that move or blink. When creating a PowerPoint, billboard, brochure, website, or
other communication piece where you want people to engage, consider how to include human faces, food,
movement, stories, and appropriate uses of physical beauty and health to initially capture people’s attention.
Principle of attention|The four Strategies : Selection, Salience, Frequency and Time.

To hold a person’s attention beyond the initial grab, four different strategies can be used, sometimes all at
the same time: selection, frequency, time, and salience.

Selection: Attention is selective and people will filter. If you want people to pay attention to something, help
draw their attention by using highlighting tactics to emphasize what is important and relevant. If you don’t
do it for them, people’s brains will do this on their own and they may not select what you want them to.

Salience: People tend to only pay attention to and remember the most obvious, noticeable, or important
piece of information. In every communication you create, emphasize what is most important first, then work
backwards. Think in terms of A-B-C messaging: most important should be most salient, then progressively
less so.

Frequency: People unconsciouly know roughly how frequent something occurs and they will pay attention
when that moment comes. If you want to draw attention to something that occurs infrequently or irregularly,
make an extra effort to draw attention to it. If it happens regularly, keep the communication consistent so
people’s subconsious can expect to pay attention at the right time.

Time: Average adult attention span for listening and watching is about seven minutes. To maintain attention,
change topics, activities, or direction every ten minutes. Average time spent on a website is about 59 seconds.
Determine what you can reasonably expect somene to pay attention to in less than a minute on a website.
Principle of Emotion

It’s not uncommon to think of business, professional, and scientific documents as static and boring.
Traditionally, workplace communications earned that reputation because most instruction in the field
(including college lectures and textbooks) focused more on the formulaic aspects of
communication—formatting, organizational structure, grammar and mechanics, process, project
management, and so forth. Even in chapters and lectures that covered design, the focus tended to be more
on usability. Emotion was rarely part of the communication equation.

But cognitive and behavioral scientists have shifted the way we think about emotion—it underlies just about
everything else. When we have emotional reactions, we engage better, learn better, and remember better.
World-renown cognitive scientist and human-computer interaction specialist Donald Norman put it simply:
“Usually you react to a situation emotionally before you react to it cognitively.”
Emotional Principle: Three components

Visceral Design

Behavioral Design

Reflective Design
Emotional Principle

Functional. Information needs to be usable, understandable, and accessible. At the most basic level,
people need to be able to use and understand it. If not, it fails right away.

Reliable. Beyond functional, information and the medium in which it is presented needs to be reliable. If
the information is untrustworthy or lacks or credibility—or if the technology on which it is presented (say,
on a website) breaks down or is full of broken links, its reliability will kill its functionality.

Usable. Usability, in the words of web guru Steve Krug, means to not make people think. In other words,
information should be as efficient as possible without creating stumbling blocks along the way. If people
can’t find information or they make several errors or misturns, then the information isn’t all that usable.
**THRESHOLD**Information designs should meet the first three in order to, at the very least, meet users’
needs.
Convenient. After crossing the threshold of functionality, reliability, and usability, information should
become convenient. In other words, it should be natural to read and follow, it should be simple to navigate,
and it should be easy to use.

Pleasurable. Information can become enjoyable to access if it is aesthetically pleasing and written with
friendly, conversational language, infusing concepts such as humor, fun, and personable.

Meaningful. At the highest level of experiential design, information that becomes meaningful directly
impacts the emotions and perspectives of your reader-user in new ways. Meaningfulness is subjective and
not always easy to capture, but if you can move your audiences in impactful ways by telling stories and
capturing cultural, personal, and societal nuances, then you’ve really done something with communicative
power.
Emotional Principle: Picture Superiority Effect

“Human Picture Superiority Effect is truly Olympian. Tests performed years ago showed that people could
remember more than 2,500 pictures with at least 90 percent accuracy several days post-exposure, even
though subjects saw each photo four about 10 seconds. Accuracy rates a year later still hovered around 63
percent. … Text and oral presentations are not just less efficient than pictures for retaining certain types of
information; they are way less efficient. If information is presented orally, people remember about 10 percent,
tested 72 hours after exposure. That figure goes up to 65 percent if you add a picture.”
Emotional Principle: Emotional Appeals in Visualization

Periscopic co-founder Kim Rees (2016) states that it is almost mandatory to need the audience to react.
Where numbers fail, images succeed; it is the image that holds the key to conveying meaning and affect

To move towards creating more thoughtful and meaningful visualizations, Lupi states that we need to
embrace complexity, move beyond standard visual forms, sneak context in, and remember the imperfect
nature of data. Lupi embraces complexity, favoring rich and complex storytelling over immediate clarity
and simplification.Lastly, when data visualization embraces imperfection and approximation, it allows
visualization designers “to envision ways to use data to feel more empathetic, to connect with ourselves
and others at a deeper level.

We need to remember that behind the data are stories and inside those stories are people and those
people are connected to the statistics in a way that we never will be”
Kostelnick (2016) pays particular attention to the historical use of emotional appeals in visualization,
identifying their use in the later nineteenth century and their re-emergence in the present day. He
categorizes today’s pathos techniques in digital visualizations as 1) sensory stimulation, 2) personal proximity,
and 3) expressive displays. Within the bucket of sensory stimulation are the use of color, novel forms, and
animation. The second category focuses on principles of personal proximity, where the data relates to the
audience through time, their spatial location, or their interests. This aligns with the near and far concept
(Harris 2015) as well as Rost’s technique of showing what the data means for the audience’s experience (2017).
The third category focuses on expressive displays, which is more of a type of visualization than an individual
technique. Kostelnick highlights expressive displays that are referred to as data art (Yau 2013) and the
increasing trend of visualizing personal data.

the purpose for making a chart is to clarify or make visible the facts that otherwise would lie buried in a mass
of written materials

Bateman et al. investigated the effects of visual embellishments on interpretation accuracy and
memorability (2010) and, when reflecting on the results, considered the participant’s emotional response as a
potential hidden factor in the increase in memorability with embellished charts.
Emotional Principle: Humanize

Efforts to humanize data help the audience connect the data to what they are about, which is most often
people.

The final humanizing technique shows what the data are about with a greater sense of realism; this
technique, proposed by Harris (2015), is about putting a face to the data.

Philosopher George Campbell asserts that audiences care about, and are more likely to emotionally invest
in, people and events near them

visualization community lacks empirical evidence that visualizations incorporating proximity techniques
evoke any type of emotional response. This study begins to address the gap by evaluating this relationship
within the context of data visualization.
While diving into the conversation about emotions in the visualization community, a research
opportunity became apparent: to empirically evaluate techniques that are said to appeal to
emotions. Several techniques have been proposed, but very little research exists in assessing if
these visualization techniques do indeed evoke emotion.

While these circumstances were identified within the context of speaking, the visualization
community has liberally employed these techniques since interactive visualizations were possible.
When an individual is able to customize the information that a visualization displays, the visual
experience that results is one that is dominated by their interests and what is important to them.
This technique, referred to in this study as proximity to interests, cites Campbell’s circumstance of
importance.

In order to evaluate the emotional impact of proximity techniques in visualizations, one must
develop a foundational understanding as to how emotions are measured. Emotion is a term used
in everyday language, often interchangeably with words like affect, feeling, and mood. The
scientific community distinguishes these terms, although not with consensual definitions
(Scherer 2001; Scherer 2005). Scherer defends the component process definition for emotion as “a
process of changes in different components rather than a homogenous state” (2001). The three
widely accepted components, physiological arousal, motor expression, and subjective feeling, are
known as the emotional response triad
Emotional Principle: measuring emotion

There is no objective method for measuring someone’s subjective emotional experience, so researchers rely
on capturing subjective feeling through self-reporting.

This draws attention to the fact that interpretability of charts is a learned skill, a fact that designers must be
cognizant of when designing charts for a broad audience.

The primary measurement in this study, Scherer’s Geneva Emotion Wheel (GEW) (2005), captures the
participant’s emotional response to the chart. GEW, shown in Figure 4.9, is comprised of 20 emotion families
located along the circumference of the valence-control space. This allows for the differentiation of feelings in
this two-dimensional space.
EVALUATING THE EMOTIONAL EF FECT
OF PROXIMITY TECHNIQUES 59
includes a five-point scale for each
emotion family, represented as circles
sequentially radiating from the center
with an increasing radius.
Since pathos is a mode of persuasion, this study incorporates a measurement for attitude change. To
measure change in attitude, I followed the procedure of Pandey et al. (2014), utilizing a single-item Likert
scale.

The survey begins with a consent statement which is required to accept before continuing through the
survey. Once consent is given, participants were taken through six stages of the survey. The first stage
consisted of three demographic questions regarding age, gender, and education level. Stage two
measured data literacy, where participants were given an image of a stacked bar chart and asked about
the information in the chart. Stage three included a topic introduction and two pre-treatment
measurements: initial attitude and involvement. In stage four, participants were instructed to visit an
external link that has one of the four interactive charts. After exploring the chart, participants enter stage
five: a high-level question to check that the participant paid attention to the chart. Lastly, stage six
Figure 4.10
Stages of the survey.
included the post-treatment questions: emotional response, post-treatment attitude measurement, and
a free-response question regarding why the participant’s attitude did or did not change. The survey
concluded with a disclosure statement about the full purpose of the survey.
50 participants were recruited for each treatment, resulting in 200 participants in the study. The study
expected to take approximately 5-10 minutes to complete, and each participant was compensated $0.50
for their time.
These findings indicate that the framing of data matters, that people feel greater interest towards a topic
when the visualized data are more relevant to them and that data representing events closer in time are
more affecting.

It can be argued that framing the data in such a way leaves data

points out, thus not telling the full story of the dataset. However, when the framing increases relevance
to the viewer, thus increasing its impact on the audience, while maintaining a truthful connection to the
underlying data, the framing is justified.
Emotional Principle: Humanize

Aesthetic criteria. Aesthetic criteria (rules for

laying out graphs) have been widely used as
quality measures to evaluate the "goodness"
of a visualization (W. Huang, 2013). In the past
three decades, a variety of aesthetic criteria
have been proposed with an 6 assumption
that they will improve the readability and
understanding of graphs. Table 1
summarized the most accepted aesthetic
criteria
Refrences

https://repository.library.northeastern.edu/files/neu:cj82rk29v/fulltext.pdf

https://repository.library.northeastern.edu/files/neu:cj82rk29v/fulltext.pdf

https://venngage.com/blog/survey-results/

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https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1532860

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https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-
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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351978915007192

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8079755

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