1 Data visualization

We have some rules to follow as we created plots. Here, we aim to provide some general principles we can use as a guide for effective data visualization. Much of this section is based on a talk by Karl Broman^[1] titled “Creating Effective Figures and Tables”^[2] and includes some of the figures which were made with code that Karl makes available on his GitHub repository ^[3], as well as class notes from Peter Aldhous’ Introduction to Data Visualization course^[4]. Following Karl’s approach, we show some examples of plot styles we should avoid, explain how to improve them, and use these as motivation for a list of principles. We compare and contrast plots that follow these principles to those that don’t.

The principles are mostly based on research related to how humans detect patterns and make visual comparisons. The preferred approaches are those that best fit the way our brains process visual information. When deciding on a visualization approach, it is also important to keep our goal in mind. We may be comparing a viewable number of quantities, describing distributions for categories or numeric values, comparing the data from two groups, or describing the relationship between two variables. As a final note, we want to emphasize that for a data scientist it is important to adapt and optimize graphs to the audience. For example, an exploratory plot made for ourselves will be different than a chart intended to communicate a finding to a general audience.