Visualising Data

Introduction

Edward Tufte

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.

Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative.

Stephen Few

"The best software for data analysis is the software you forget you're using. It's such a natural extension of your thinking process that you can use it without thinking about the mechanics."

Stephen Eight Core Principles:

Simplify (good data visualization captures the essence of data - without oversimplifying.)

Compare (we need to be able to compare our data visualizations side by side. Shift the burden of effort to our eyes.)

Attend (make it easy for us to attend to the data that is really important.)

Explore (data visualization tools should let us just look. ... to explore data and discover things.)

View Diversely (different views of the same data provide different insights. It helps to be able to look at the same data from different perspectives at the same time and see how they fit together.)

Ask why (more than knowing "what's happening", we need to know "why it is happening".)

Be skeptical (too rarely do we question the answers we get from our data because traditional tools have made data analysis so hard. We accept the first answer we get simply because exploring any further is tool hard.)

Respond (simply answering questions for yourself has limited benefit. It's the ability to share our data that leads to global enlightenment.)

Examples

Neil Charles Football posts.

Visualising Data

Introduction

Examples

Recommended Reading

Suggested Reading