Social Visualization Patterns

One of the most common problems that users experience when they present a dataset as a visualization is that they don’t always know the best visualization technique to use that fits with their data that they are presenting and achieves their communication or analysis goals.

Users need to learn the inbuilt strengths and limitations of different visualization techniques and how these might fit onto the data they are seeking to present.

Use when

People need to choose the most appropriate way to visualize a dataset.

Solution

Help the person determine their analysis or communication goals and then suggest a visualization approach that maps most closely onto their stated objectives and is appropriate for their dataset.

Why

This chart suggestions flow chart breaks a wide range of visualisations into different communication outcomes, and variables of those outcomes (Copyright Doug Hull of MATLAB).

Rather than forcing people to concentrate on learning the merits of different visualization approaches (which can seem esoteric), guiding them through their communication and analysis goals helps people to focus on what they already know about their data and context they want to present it in.

How

Attempt to determine the communication or analysis goals the person has for their data visualization, including:

• who they will be sharing the visualization with
• what kind of data they will be visualizing
• what outcomes they want the visualization to create

Based on these factors, suggest a visualization approach for the data, explaining why that approach is best suited to their goals.

Also present a range of other visualization approaches to the person, stressing their individual strengths and weaknesses.

Issues

This requires users to have a good understanding of the original data to be able to choose an appropriate visualization approach that communicates the dataset in the visual medium. An alternative approach by Many Eyes Wikified automatically chooses the visualization approach by performing a textual analysis on the dataset and choosing the best approach based on keywords (e.g. world uses a world map – heat map visualization), thus eliminating this problem.

Related patterns

• Wizard