Catalog

Guideline Catalog

Browse visualization guideline records with sections, labels, and references.

781 records

Page 28 of 33

  1. Use chart text to show concrete consequences or actions

    For explanatory communication about socially consequential outcomes, use text annotation on a chosen visualization to improve insight and address abstract, non-actionable interpretation for general-public audiences.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:rhetorical
    • quality:insight
    • lever:text-annotation
    • component:caption:use
    • +2

  2. Use choropleth maps for approximate regional values, not exact lookup

    For regional lookup and comparison, use approximate-value interpretation on choropleth maps to improve fidelity and mitigate mistaken exact-value lookup for novice readers.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:empirical
    • chart:choropleth
    • data:geospatial
    • lever:encoding
    • +3

  3. Use circles when annotations describe regions rather than points

    For explaining regional patterns on a detailed map, use circle annotations on the map to improve readability and mitigate overly point-specific arrow callouts for readers scanning clusters rather than single marks.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:heuristic
    • chart:map
    • quality:readability
    • lever:text-annotation
    • +2

  4. Use clear lightness progression in ordered map colors

    For overview reading of choropleth values, use clear lightness progression in sequential and diverging color schemes to improve readability and mitigate slow detection of low and high regions.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:heuristic
    • chart:choropleth
    • quality:readability
    • lever:encoding
    • +2

  5. Use clearly distinct matched-statistics plots to teach why visualization matters

    For teaching or explanation, use a multi-view set of plots with matched summary statistics to improve insight and mitigate the belief that one statistical summary is sufficient for readers learning from example data.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:empirical
    • task:compare
    • structure:multi-view:use
    • quality:insight
    • +2

  6. Use color encoding for mean and variance judgments in time-series views

    For summary judgments on ordered-time data, use color encoding on time-series views to improve fidelity and mitigate misreading of mean and variance for overview readers.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:empirical
    • task:distribute
    • time:ordered-time
    • data:temporal
    • +3

  7. Use color hue instead of shape to encode nominal categories

    For category differentiation in color-capable static charts with categorical data, prefer color hue encoding on marks to improve fidelity and mitigate weak group separation for readers identifying categories.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:empirical
    • data:categorical
    • quality:fidelity
    • lever:encoding
    • +2

  8. Use color instead of size for a secondary quantitative field when position carries the primary value

    For exact individual-value tasks, use color encoding for the secondary quantitative field on multivariate point plots to improve fidelity and mitigate size-based interference with a primary positional value for readers reading or comparing single points.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:empirical
    • lever:encoding
    • channel:color-hue:use
    • channel:area:avoid
    • +3

  9. Use color rather than shape to distinguish groups for mean comparisons in scatterplots

    For mean-comparison tasks, prefer color grouping on scatterplots to improve fidelity and mitigate less accurate group mean judgments for viewers comparing the average positions of two point sets.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:empirical
    • task:compare
    • chart:scatter
    • quality:fidelity:use
    • +3

  10. Use color rather than shape to encode groups for scatterplot mean comparisons

    For comparing group averages, prefer color encoding over shape encoding for group membership on scatterplots to improve fidelity and mitigate misreading of mean position for overview readers.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:empirical
    • task:compare
    • chart:scatter
    • quality:fidelity
    • +3

  11. Use color saturation instead of color hue for ordered color scales

    For ordered-value reading, prefer color saturation on continuous color encoding to improve fidelity and mitigate value misordering for viewers who infer order from color alone.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:empirical
    • quality:fidelity:use
    • lever:encoding
    • polish:palette
    • +2

  12. Use color saturation instead of length to encode ordinal values

    For ordered-level reading in static charts with ordinal data, prefer color saturation encoding on a chosen chart to improve fidelity and mitigate weak progression judgments for readers interpreting ranked levels.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:empirical
    • data:ordinal
    • quality:fidelity
    • lever:encoding
    • +2

  13. Use color to group or highlight panels in small multiples

    For grouped trend reading in small-multiple line charts, use color encoding for grouping or emphasis to improve insight and address unnecessary category-color keys for readers reading titled single-line panels.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:heuristic
    • structure:small-multiples
    • quality:insight
    • lever:encoding
    • +2

  14. Use colorfields instead of line charts when similarity should tolerate local time warping

    For similarity comparison in ordered-time views, use colorfields on time-series displays instead of line charts to improve readability and mitigate slower candidate scanning for viewers matching temporally warped patterns.

    • purpose:select
    • basis:empirical
    • task:compare
    • time:ordered-time
    • chart:heatmap:use
    • +3

  15. Use contiguous cartograms instead of rectangular cartograms for area-comparison tasks

    For compare tasks on geospatial cartograms, prefer a contiguous cartogram type on area-encoded map views to improve fidelity and mitigate area-judgment errors for readers comparing region sizes, ranking regions, or judging growth and shrinkage.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:empirical
    • task:compare
    • chart:map
    • data:geospatial
    • +3

  16. Use contiguous cartograms instead of rectangular cartograms for region location lookup

    For lookup tasks on geospatial cartograms, prefer a contiguous cartogram type on distorted map views to improve fidelity and mitigate region-location lookup errors for readers finding a region on the cartogram.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:empirical
    • task:retrieve
    • chart:map
    • data:geospatial
    • +3

  17. Use cool colors with lightness contrast and limited hue separation

    For aesthetic evaluation of categorical palettes, use cool colors with lightness contrast and limited hue separation on categorical color encodings to maximize aesthetics and address disliked color pairings for viewers judging palette appeal.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:empirical
    • data:categorical
    • quality:aesthetics
    • lever:encoding
    • +4

  18. Use darker more opaque-looking colors for larger quantities on light backgrounds when the colormap appears to vary in opacity

    For quantitative comparison on light-background colormaps, use dark-more scale order on color scales that appear to vary in opacity to improve reading speed and mitigate high-end misreading for viewers interpreting magnitude from color.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:empirical
    • quality:readability:use
    • lever:scale-order
    • channel:opacity:use
    • +1

  19. Use decile cues instead of quartile cues on a stacked bar for exact part-to-whole estimation

    For exact part-to-whole estimation, prefer decile internal cues over quartile internal cues on stacked bar charts to improve accuracy and address weak anchor placement for readers judging a highlighted share when no external scale is shown.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:empirical
    • chart:bar
    • quality:fidelity:use
    • lever:text-annotation
    • +3

  20. Use directional words instead of numeric values when only the gradient direction matters

    For overview reading in quantitative color keys, use directional words on legends with metrics that need heavy explanation when the message is relative more-or-less change to improve readability and mitigate distracting units for readers who only need the general idea.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:heuristic
    • data:quantitative
    • quality:readability
    • lever:text-annotation
    • +3

  21. Use discrete bins for bivariate color lookup

    For exact lookup tasks on bivariate color maps, prefer discrete encoding on value-and-uncertainty charts to improve identification accuracy and mitigate perceptual color-decoding errors for readers matching marks to a legend.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:empirical
    • task:retrieve
    • quality:fidelity:use
    • lever:encoding
    • +2

  22. Use discrete clicks for blurred-image attention maps

    For crowdsourced approximation of visual attention on static images, use discrete click collection on blurred image views to improve fidelity and mitigate transition noise in remote importance-mapping studies.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:empirical
    • quality:fidelity
    • lever:interaction-access

  23. Use discrete interval means instead of a continuous moving average for interval-average comparisons

    For interval-average comparisons in ordered time, use discrete interval mean encodings on time-series charts to maximize fidelity and address boundary-crossing summary cues for exact interval judgments.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:empirical
    • task:compare
    • time:ordered-time
    • quality:fidelity
    • +1

  24. Use distinct hues rather than gradients for categories

    For category-coded charts, use distinct hues on the categorical encoding to improve fidelity and mitigate unintended ranking of categories for readers.

    • purpose:refine
    • basis:heuristic
    • data:categorical
    • quality:fidelity
    • lever:encoding
    • +2