Here’s a passage from Schwabish:
Whenever I create a data visualization, whether it’s static, interactive, or part of a report or blog post or even a tweet, I follow five primary guidelines.
· Show the data
· Reduce the clutter
· Integrate the graphics and text
· Avoid the spaghetti chart
· Start with gray
… Taken together, these five guidelines remind me of the needs of my audience and how my visuals can tell them a story. (Schwabish, p. 29)
Also, a similar passage from Tufte, written about thirty years earlier:
Exactly the same design strategies are found, again and again, in the work of those faced with a flood of data and images, as they scramble to reveal, within the cramped limits of flatland, their detailed and complex information. These design strategies are surprisingly widespread, albeit little appreciated, and occur quite independently of the content of the data. (Tufte, p. 23)
For the follow-up phase please choose three places in the Tufte Envisioning Information chapter and provide a substantial (100+ words each) discussion of how you see Tufte’s description of different visualization practices connecting (or, perhaps, sometimes differing from) Schwabish’s basic guidelines. In all, you should have about 300-350 words written, and I’d like you to use these annotations to demonstrate a reinforced understanding of these fundamental principles.
