Beauty Is As Beauty Does

raylyons — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 04:04:42 +0000

Infographics is one of two new fashionable terms used nowadays to refer to statistical charts and graphs. The other term is visualizations, which replaces such archaic words as graphs, charts, pictures, diagrams, and illustrations. Sometimes the term is affectionately shortened to data viz by its really cool practitioners.

In the infographics/visualization/data viz movement there are two basic schools of thought. One school emphasizes principles of artistic design and the other emphasizes information clarity. The first prizes graphics that are beautiful and appealing, while the other judges visualizations based on how informative they are.1 Many adherents of the first approach to graphics are marketing and advertising professionals. Lest you presume that they subscribe to the motto
ars gratia artis… [Read more...]

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1 Of course, it is possible for graphics to be simultaneously beautiful and informational. Well-designed graphics can be elegant in their clarity and visual appeal. See Edward Tufte’s book Beautiful Evidence.

A-One-and-a-Two-and-a-Three

raylyons — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:21:49 +0000

There’s a goodly amount of good advice in the book What the Numbers Say: A Field Guide to Mastering Our Numerical World by Derrick Niederman and David Boyum (2003, Broadway Books). The quantity of this advice is sizable, considerable, hefty, copius, substantial, and voluminous. It’s a lot! But I’m more impressed qualitatively. Their message is germane to the points I have tried to make in this blog.

The first chapter is entitled “Ten Habits of Highly Effective Quantitative Thinkers.” Don’t hold the title against the authors, though. Their book is written primarily for the business field where an upbeat approach is expected protocol. Their choice of this title was (I hope) subterfuge since their goal is to convince people to prefer substance over form. [Read more]

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Beauty Is As Beauty Does

A-One-and-a-Two-and-a-Three