In my previous posts on Visualising Data and Practical Steps for Good Visualisation, I defined good data visualisation as something that can help researchers and other users to explore datasets and identify patterns, associations and trends, and also to communicate that understanding to others.
There are three different aspects to the way that visualisations can be used to communicate, so the final format of your visualisation should be informed by where it sits in the visualisation space (adapted from work by MacEachren on how people use maps):
- Communication or understanding: Is the visualisation presenting/communicating known information to an audience, or revealing unknown trends?
- Interaction: How is the user able to interact with the visualisation?
- Audience: Is the visualisation intended for public dissemination (eg, to a general audience), or private use (eg, by more technical audience)
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| After MacEachren (1994) |
For example, visualisations that lie in the furthest-top-right corner are those that are primarily intended to communicate information to a general audience in a non-interactive way, such as presenting performance data to citizens using printed (or PDF) reports. Visualisations in the lower-bottom-left corner are those that are designed for specialists to actively explore and analyse information, such as using spreadsheet data to identify patterns.
Know who your audience are and what the message is that you want to convey, and design your visualisation accordingly.
