Data Visualization Guideline

by Ankur Sharma, http://ankur.com.np , http://twitter.com/yowlanku

Introduction
Essence of Data visualization is self explanatory, they present the best way to answer questions. Whenever the set of data is
produced in form of table or a list it contains information, data visualization is the method to extract, preset aesthetically and
logically the data in human readable form, same data-set can produce different visualization according to particular question
asked.

visualization types and usages

Charts Graphs Special Visualization

Appropriate usages of these visualization techniques largely depend upon questions the diagram is answering and target
audience, Well represented diagrams serves multiple purpose. It adds aesthetic to whole article, increase readership, provide
a glance inside news, serves as future reference and boost quality of newspaper at once.

Market summary of Nepse from http://www.res-con.biz/

In this Document
• This document is brief summary of:
• Visualization guideline
• Tools for visualizing data
• References

Visualization Guideline 1
Guideline
• Start with Data , don’t start with chart type. Spot the distinct trend in data and visualize what is important and how it can
be conveyed better, after finding trend in data it is easier and effective to choose chart type.

• Use available data wisely, it is not necessary to plot all data at once. There are options for multiple charts and you can
choose over certain frequency periods to highlight the message. Better option is to ask what question the visualization
should answer and choose number and type of visualization.

• Don’t start with bar/pie chart, Pie chart have it’s own purpose (showing part to whole ratio) and charts are not always
rectangular bar to begin with. If only bar and pie charts comes as option then there is some flaw in thinking or data itself.
Perhaps learning about different types of charts helps a lot

• Never use default template, there are many reason not to use default layouts. Primarily they are overused and thus
monotonous, secondarily they are templates which might not be suitable to particular data-set. Similarly using templates
without modifying makes diagram maker look lazy and out of taste.

• Avoid primary colors, Primary color are hard over the eyes. Primary color catches attention easily and if multiple primary
colors are used the charts are hard to read, use gray shades for grid (and background if necessary) and dull colors for
data, if required use 1-2 primary colors to highlight particular point on chart

• Never skew/bias the charts, even if it is beneficial. It is easy to bias the charts, ever minor changes in scale and
frequency of the plot produces different inferences, but once you are caught biasing whole reputation is gone.

• Charts are not interchangeable, sometime data-set may be compatible with more than one charts, but data conveys
different message in different charts, so never start with one chart and later change it to other, do careful study
beforehand .

• Don’t design charts individually, charts alone are less meaningful. Charts are most of the time used with document,
news, report etc. which have distinctive layout, color combination and presentation style on overall. Charts must fit within.
If overall layout is not considered while designing charts, they will not aid the purpose at all.

• Everything 3d is not good, while aesthetic is necessary to attract the audience, it does not mean that eye-candy and 3d
charts should be overused, if simple charts conveys message well and are pleasing to eyes they should be opted over 3d
and candy charts.

Few charts displaying fundamental flaws in representation

Visualization Guideline 2
Recommended Tools
Visualization Tools

Bar charts, pie charts, line charts, scatter charts, area Apps Remarks
charts, Venn diagram, organization charts, simple network
Microsoft Excel Basic graphs, low
graphs.
customization
(for daily usages and rapid development) Apple Numbers Works with OS X only, basic
graphs
Adobe Illustrator Basic graphs, highly
customizable

Visualization tools with Graphical user interface and tools Apps Remarks
requiring medium level statistical and mathematical skills.
OpenDX OSX version costs $25,
(for regular usages with few hours to play over data-set) windows version is free.
Weka data mining tool, free of cost,
requires some learning.
Microsoft Visio drawing and diagramming
software from microsoft.
Crystal Xcelcius Visualiztion solution from
Crystal, can also be included
in webpages
Visualization tools with Programmable IDE and requiring Apps Remarks
programming and mathematical skills.
Axiis Open source technology
(for special usages with atleast 1-2 days to play over data- build over adobe flex
set) Google Visualization API Google’s answer for
visualization (require
programming skills)
IBM ManyEyes IBM’s intutive visualization
API

Visualization Guideline 3
References

http://www.gapminder.org/

Gapminder is a non-profit venture promoting sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations
Millennium Development Goals by increased use and understanding of statistics and other information about social,
economic and environmental development at local, national and global levels.

http://www.gnuplot.info/

Gnuplot supports many types of plots in either 2D and 3D. It can draw using lines, points, boxes, contours, vector fields,
surfaces, and various associated text. It also supports various specialized plot types

http://opendx.org/

With OpenDX, you can create the visualizations you want to create. OpenDX has been designed to be the place where the
art of science and the science of visualization come together. It's the place where they're combined into one powerful,
flexible framework that lets you "Simply Visualize."

http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/ml/weka/

Weka is a collection of machine learning algorithms for data mining tasks. The algorithms can either be applied directly to a
dataset or called from your own Java code. Weka contains tools for data pre-processing, classification, regression,
clustering, association rules, and visualization. It is also well-suited for developing new machine learning schemes.

http://www.stata.com/

Stata is a general-purpose statistical software package created in 1985 by StataCorp. It is used by many businesses and
academic institutions around the world. Most of its users work in research, especially in the fields of economics, sociology,
political science, and epidemiology.

http://www.datavisualization.ch/

Datavisualization.ch is a website dedicated to data and information visualization. The mission is to document and discuss
research findings in this field. This includes cognitions from self initiated studies as well as providing an overview of the
development done by the incredible smart people in the community.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/groups/dmx/

Microsoft Data Visualization center, 

http://www.in-rev.com

InRev Systems Bangalore Pvt. Ltd transforms business by making all possible information available at all times. InRev
combines domain knowledge, trusted reporting structure and innovative applications to help companies advance their
business decisions. InRev serves across all stages of Business Intelligence and Decision Management right from Data
Extraction and Integration to Strategy Consulting using the intelligent insights of the business. InRev is the promise to the
World to take the Information Extraction and Usage to the next level. InRev plans to make use of every possible data and
process them to build Killer Apps which would bring an Information Revolution in the World.

Visualization Guideline 4
 http://www.axiis.org/about.html

Axiis is an open source data visualization framework designed for beginner and expert developers alike.

Whether you are building elegant charts for executive briefings or exploring the boundaries of advanced data visualization
research, Axiis has something for you.

Axiis provides both pre-built visualization components as well as abstract layout patterns and rendering classes that allow
you to create your own unique visualizations.

http://www.satimage-software.com/

Smile is a Macintosh computer programming and working environment based on AppleScript. It features a number of
production technologies and a natural fashion of having them work together. Smile is primarily designed for scientists,
engineers, desktop publishers, and web administrators, to help them producing faster and better, automating frequent tasks,
and controlling complex operations.

http://www.res-con.biz/

ResCon, pronounced as /res’kun/, is the brainchild of Anup Sharma and Tilak Acharya. After closely monitoring the financial
sector, Anup and Tilak felt the need of a company providing cognitive analysis of the Nepalese capital market. They
observed that many customers were willing to invest but didn’t have a beacon light showing the best possible direction to
invest in the Nepalese Stock Market. As both of them had good background knowledge of the Nepalese Stock Market, they
were confident of bridging this gap and providing the “beacon light” for the prospective investors. Hence, with a clear set of
vision, they started gathering data and analyzing them since the Spring of 2007. After almost one year of constant research,
the idea finally took the shape and culminated into ResCon, an amalgamation of Research and Consulting.

http://vizlab.nytimes.com/

Visualization Lab, where you can create visual representations of data and information using the "Many Eyes" technology
from IBM Research.

http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/

The Google Visualization API lets you access multiple sources of structured data that you can display, choosing from a large
selection of visualizations. Google Visualization API enables you to expose your own data, stored on any data-store that is
connected to the web, as a Visualization compliant datasource. Thus you can create reports and dashboards as well as
analyze and display your data through the wealth of available visualization applications. The Google Visualization API also
provides a platform that can be used to create, share and reuse visualizations written by the developer community at large. 

http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/

Many Eyes is an IBM Research project and website whose stated goal is to democratize information and to enable social
data analysis ("social" in the sense of Web 2.0), by making it easy for laypeople to create, edit, share and discuss each
other's information visualizations. It was started in 2007 by Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg.

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Visualization Guideline 5