Visual Cues
In Chapter 1, “Telling Stories with Data,” you saw how encodings work. Basically, you have data, and that data is encoded by geometry, color, or animation. Readers then decode those shapes, shades, and movement, mapping them back to numbers. This is the foundation of visualization. Encoding is a visual translation. Decoding helps you see data from a different angle and find patterns that you otherwise would not have seen if you looked only at the data in a table or a spreadsheet.
These encodings are usually straightforward because they are based on mathematical rules. Longer bars represent higher values, and smaller circles represent smaller values. Although your computer makes a lot of decisions during this process, it’s still up to you to pick encodings appropriate for the dataset at hand.
Through all the examples in previous chapters, you’ve seen how good design not only lends to aesthetics, but also makes graphics easier to read and can change...