Small Handbook of Information Design: 16 Principles for

01 Usepencilandpaper

02 Contentisfirst

03 Donotdrawgraphsbyhand

04 Donotenlargenumbers

05 Usewords,notjustimages

06 Usesmallmultiples

07 Donotbunglethemeaning

08 Donotcreateop-art

09 Donotuselittledotsfornumbers

10 Donotusecolors(tobememorized)

11 Sortbyvalue,notcategory

12 Equallyspacetimeintervalsintimelines

13 Avoidmeaninglessconceptmaps

14 Youcanusesmalltype

15 Donotscreentype

16 Psychologyofperception

Small Handbook of Information Design:16 Principles for Better Data Visualizations

SomeoftheseprinciplesarebasedinpartonEdwardTufte’sbooksandworkshops.To print more booklets: bit.ly/1bhDU4yThanks(andapologies)tomystudentsforshowingdetailsfromtheirvariousprojects.PinoTrogu©February 2020–Secondedition–trogu.com

Pino Trogu

Small Handbook of Information Design:16 Principles for Better Data Visualizations

Everygraphicisanadhocconstruction,thereforetheserulescanbebrokendependingonthecontext.Howeveryoushouldtrytodothegraphicbyfollowingtheserulesfirstandbreakthemlaterifnecessary.

SanFranciscoStateUniversityCollegeofLiberalandCreativeArtsSchool of design

DES523InformationDesign1:DataVisualizationFebruary 2020

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Notes: Notes:

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16 Psychology of perception

Beawareofthefollowingtermsrelatedtocognitivepsychologyandpsychologyofperception:workingmemory,co-constructionofmeaning,backgroundknowledge,conventionsofrepresentation,cultural(visualandverbal)conventions,context,genre,theannotationlayer,closure.

Formoreinformationaboutthetermsabove,readmytwopapers:The Four-Second Windowhttp://bit.ly/Ve2mphandThe Double Constraints of Convention and Cognition in Successful Graphic Designhttp://bit.ly/12zLinLVisitURLstodownloadthePDFsofthearticles.

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Intheearlyandlaterphasesofaproject,simplyusepencilandpaperasyourdesigntools,usegraphpaperifneeded,tosketchideas,tryoutdesigns,andworkoutyourproposal.Workonyourideasandyourconceptsbysketchingyourvisualizations.Solveproblemsthroughsketchingbyhand,notbystaringatacomputerscreen.

01 Use pencil and paper

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02 Content is first

Contentisfirst,formissecond.Selectinterestingcontent.Content-lessstuffproducesform-less,uninformativevisualizations.Thismeansthatyouneedoneormoredatasetsthatarerichwithdata.Manycolumnsandmanyrows(lotsofdatapoints)arebetterthanjusttwodatapoints.Forexample,twopercentages:25and75areinthemselvesnotveryinterestinganditwouldbehardtopulloffaninterestingvisualizationbasedonjustthosetwonumbers.

15 Do not screen type

Everyfontisawonderfulandbeautifuluniverseuntoitself.Dowereallyneedtotinkerwithwhatisalreadyaverysophisticatedsignsystem?Donotreverse,screen(maketints),border,condenseorexpandtype.Donotitalicizetypebypressingthe“oblique”button.Useafontthatalreadyhasawiderangeofweights.Traditionalold-styleitalicfontsarebesttosavespaceifneeded,astheyarenaturallycondensedandweredesignedforthispurpose.Donotletyourtextlinesrunlongerthantwo-and-a-halftimesthealphabet–about60characters.Breakupthebigtextboxesintotwoormorecolumnswhenevernecessarysothatyourmeasure(boxwidth)is“measured”andcorrect.Donotjustifytextifpossible,useflushleft/raggedright(FL/RR).

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14 You can use small type

Youcanusesmalltypeinabigposter.Useasmanysizesasneeded.Arangefrom16-18ptto24ptisthebestsizerangeformosttextonaposter,excludingthemaintitleandpossiblythesubtitle,withevensmallersizesforcaptionsandlabels.Forshorttexts,use24pt.Sometimes30ptforlargertextcanbeused.Ingeneral,imaginethatyou’restanding20to30inchesfromtheposter.Atthisdistance,youshouldbeabletoreadmosttextelementsinthelayout.

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03 Do not draw graphs by hand

Donottakeanumericaltableorspreadsheetandthenrendertheshapes(thebars,thelines)byhand,evenifyou’reusingIllustrator.Rather,takethedatasetandprocessitthroughadatavisualizationprogram,suchasR,Excel,orother.ThenbringthefileintoIllustratortocleanupandfine-tunelineweights,typography,color,etc.

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04 Do not enlarge numbers

Donotturndatapointsintostand-aloneenlargednumberswithapercentagesignnexttothemtomakethemlookimportant.Fillingupyourvisualizationwithsuch“visuals”isnotanybetter,andmightinfactbeworse,thanjusthavingplaintext,withno“visualizations”atall.AninfographicisnotaPowerPointtemplate.Thebestthingtodoistocombinewordsandimagestogether.

13 Avoid meaningless concept maps

Avoidmeaninglessconceptmapsandnetworkgraphs.Forasimplereason:theyincludeonthepagetoomanyitemsandabstractconceptsatonce.Ourworkingmemory(short-termmemory)allowsustoholdinmemoryonlyafewitems(4-7)foraveryshorttime(2-4seconds)beforewehavetomoveon.Conceptmapslookverycoolbuttheyarealsoveryuninformativeandlittleinformationisretainedfromtheminourlong-termmemory.Generally,thethingoneremembersfromthemistheirvaguevisualform–theshapeofthegraph–ratherthanthemoreimportantsubjectmatter.

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12 Equally space time intervals in timelines

Keepthespacingequal(forequalperiodsoftime)evenifthatresultsinbiginformationgapswithincertainperiodsoftime.Gapsareasmeaningfulasperiodsofconcentratedactivity.Whendataisconcentratedwithinafewyears,usetypographyandothermeanstomakeeverythingreadablewhilekeepingthetemporalspacingevenandcorrect.

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05 Use words, not just images

Usesentences:subject,verb,object.Closeyourclauses.Setupanintroductionandfollowthroughwithvisualizations.Useatitle,asubtitle,anintroduction,maintextifneeded,labels,captions,credits(forpictures)call-outs,footnotes,sources(fordatasets),andasignature(colophon).Thisiscalled“theannotationlayer”.Plus,youcanincludenumericaltables,ifneededandappropriate,withinthevisualization.

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06 Use small multiples

Contentisking.Onesingleblown-upgraphicisnotsogood,especiallyifit’sjustshowingveryfewdatapoints.Don’tbestingy.Forexample,apiechartshowing25and75percentandfillingupawholeposterisnotsogood.It’smuchbettertohaveahighnumberofelementsevenifthey’resmall,likeinageographicmap.Twentylittlepiesarebetterthanonegiantpie.Tenlittlelinegraphsarebetterthanasinglegiantlinegraph.

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11 Sort by value, not category

Sortbyperformance(value),notalphabetically.Whenpartoftheinformationiscategoricalbutincludesvaluesforeachcategory,donotsortthecategoriesalphabetically.Instead,sortbythevaluesforeachofthosecategories.Forexampleifthecategoriesareproductsorstatesandeachisavalue,sortbythevalue,notbythealphabeticalnamesofthestatesorthenamesoftheproducts.

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10 Do not use colors (to be memorized)

Donotusecolorsifthereaderhastomemorizethem.Donotusecolorsifyouhavetohavealegendforeverysinglecolorinordertounderstandthegraphic.Ifnolegendisrequired,thenlittlethinkingisneededinordertoperceivethegraphic.Toomanycolorsinthegraphtakeahugetollontheattentioncapacityofthereader.Onecannotrememberallthosecolorsbecausewecanonlyrememberasmallsetofthingsatonce:five-seven.Also,colorsdonothaveanintrinsicorder,thereforetheyshouldnotbeusedtosortthings,unlessyouusevalueaswell:darkercolorformore,lightercolorforless,bothbeingfromthesamehueortwodiverginghuesmaximum.

07 Do not bungle the meaning

Donotbunglethemeaningofyourvisualization.Saywhatyoumeananddonotconfusethereader,startingwithyouropeningtitleandsubtitle.Thisappliestochoiceofwordsaswellaspictures.Forexample,ifthetopicis“Tuitionfeeincreases”donotsay:“FeehikesonMountEverest”;sayinstead:“Feeincreasesreachnewhigh”.Ifthetopicis“BlackFriday(shopping)”,donotsay:“Productscheapasablacksheep”;sayinstead:“BlackFridaykeepsmoregreeninyourwallet”.Ifthetopicis“Christmasshopping”,donotsay:“ChristmasshopperspraytoGodforbiggerdiscounts”;sayinstead:“ConsumerismandreligionmixintraditionalChristmasholiday”.Donotplaylooselywithironyandpuns,anddon’tmix-upyourmetaphors.

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08 Do not create op-art

Donotmakeop-art(opticalart)effectsbyusingboldcondensedsans-seriffontswherethestrokesarethesamewidthasthecountersinthefontandalsothewidthofthespacingbetweentheletters.Thiscreatesaveryannoying,vibratingcheckerboardeffect.Donotusesolidbackgrounds,boxes,thickborders,orarbitraryboldtype.Ifyouareusingsolidbackgroundsthroughout,invertthewholeimagetoseeifit’sbetterwiththeoppositevalues.OnaMac,usecontrol-option-command-8toinstantlyinvertthecolorsofyourscreenonthecomputer.Seeifitwouldbebettertheotherwayaround(blacktypeonwhitebackground).Ifnothingisgainedbythesolidfills,thengetridofthem.

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09 Do not use little dots for numbers

Donotuselittledotsforpercentages.Donotuselittlepeopleforquantities.Donotvisualizequantitiesbytheendlessrepetitionofsingleunitslikelittledotsorlittlesquares.Wedon’tusepebblestocountanymore,andwehaveinventedatoolcalled“placevalue”.It’sbettertowriteoutthenumberortovisualizeitusingasinglesolidarea,notmanytinyareasinlittlerows.Donotuselittlepeopleasunitstoshowquantities,evenifthequantitiesrepresentpeople.Thinkofthosepoorlittleguyswhoselimbsgetmutilatedwhenyouhavetorepresentafraction:arms,legs,evenheadsgetcutoffwithoutmercy!

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Link to my article onOtto Neurath (rule # 9)added February 12, 2019: t.co/E5yN3U7EYq