Introduction & History (9/8)

How can we define "good" visualizations?

In this class, we discuss several aspects of good visualizations, in particular the graphical integrity as E. Tufte puts it. There are many ways to lie with visualizations. Some are blatant lies; some mixes up correlation and causation; some accidentaly or intentionally omit important contexts. Why is it important to discuss about these cases in visualization?

History of visualizations

If we look at the history of arts, there is a tendency of moving from concrete to abstract. There is also an interesting contrast between sculptures (3D) and paintings (2D). There is a huge gap, more than thousand years, between realistic sculptures and realistic paintings with correct perspectives. These observations provide an interesting insight on the history of visualization. The 'abstraction' — data maps, time series, etc. — occurs after a long history of cartography.

Reading

References

Some inspirational visualization projects History of Visualization Graphical integrity
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