Important figures

Aka literature review

Jacques Bertin

1918-2010

Semiology of Graphics (1967)

Key ideas:

• Visual variables (marks)
• Early taxinomy of network layouts - arc diagram, treemap, etc.
• Bertin's matrix (precursor to the modern heatmap!)
• Interaction ideas (before computers!) on "reordering" rows before presenting results

Edward Tufte

Principles for visualizing quantitative information (1983)

Key ideas:

• Small multiples (facets). Well-known for sparklines
• Data-ink ratio
• Chartjunk

• Principles of graphical integrity

  Bonus links: WTF Viz

  Bonus example: Truth of hike in petroleum prices

• Tufte hates pie charts with a passion

Hans Rosling (1948-2017)

TrendAnalyzer and Gapminder

Key ideas:

• Popularized data visualization and animation
• Gapminder World
• TED talk: Hans Rosling - the best stats you've ever seen

Ben Shneiderman

Human Computer Interface, information visualization

Key ideas:

• Eight golden rules for interface design
• Recursive treemaps ObservableHQ example
• Taxonomy of interactive dynamics for visual analysis

Leland Wilkinson

Grammar of Graphics, 1999

Key ideas:

• Influential in describing a framework for charting graphs.
• Influenced R's ggplot2, Python's ggplot libraries.

• Readings:

  Telling stories with data using the grammar of graphics, Liz Sander

  Think about the grammar of graphics when improving your graphs, Thomas de Beus

Handley Wickham, Mike Bostock

Ggplot2 (Handley) and D3 (Bostock)

Bostock is also the founder of Observable HQ

This NYT visualization by Bostock started me down my rabbit hole.

Others: (mainly blogs)

Flowing Data (Nathan Yau)

Information is Beautiful (David McCandless)

Visualizing Data (Andy Kirk)

Junk Charts (Kaiser Fung)

Interactive Data Visualization (book) (Scott Murray)

Questions?

Chi-Loong | V/R