檳榔嶼

- Charts vs. Graphs
  - Graphs rely on X-axis and Y-axis to make data sense
  - Charts use meaningful words as X-axis, not number

- Organization matters
  - Always organize data from highest to lowest or from lowest to highest
  - If your Y-axis lists month or year, keep it, because you have organized your data by time order.

- Colors matter
  - What looks good for the design
  - What matches a brand
  - How they subconsciously impact a viewer
    - If making each bar on bar chart have one color, that seems each bar has different meanings.
    - Use dark color as the filler
       - Good example : |==============
       - Bad example :    |==============

- Complex vs Simple:
  - Not to use creative ways to present graphs, that will make audience difficult to understand, even worse, change its meaning entirely

- Keep scales consistent
  - If all graphs are put in one page, for example, if the bar standing for 42% is longer than 55%, it is confusing.
  - Also size matters, bigger size charts will quickly attract people's attentions.

- When and how to use a pie chart
  - 90% of time, pie chart is the best way to visualize the percentage, portion of a whole
  - If the percentage is the comparison result, ex: 33% better than/increase, 15% worse than/decrease, using pie charts will mislead people.
  - People are used to read the pie charts clockwise, so sorting the data from 12 o'clock.

- When and how to use a bar graph
  - Bar graphs are used to translate groups by categories or time.
  - Organize your data increaingly or decreasingly to make your audieces quickly get the conclusion.
  - For time, it is important to keep your data in chronological order
  - Don't combine data with different scales in one chart, because that will confuse the message
  - Avoid to use bar charts to represent percentage

- When and how to use a line graph
  - Better than a bar chart to represent time, because a line chart can provide the trend line
  - Even, you can put different data with the same scale in one line chart to see the trend lines to provide the whole picture
  - Avoid showing the categories as the x-axis

- When and how to use a quantagram
  - Quantagram : The use of multiple, identical pictograms to depict a number
  - People often use it to represent a great amount of number, that is use numbers and descriptions to explain your graphs
  - Or people don't know how to express their graphs
  - DO :
    - Use a quantagram to show a number of under 100
    - Use a quantagram IF there is a universal pictogram that best represents the information
    - Use a quantagram if you have been using the same chart or graph repeatedly and need to change the visual to keep a viewer engaged
  - DON'T
    - Use a quantagram to show a number over 100
    - Use a quantagram to show a complicated idea
    - Use a quantagram just because they're popular

- When and how to use typography
  - Easy
  - Use typography when
    - A number is greater than 100
    - It's not a percentage
    - It stands alone from any other data
  - http://losttype.com

- Charts and graphs to avoid
  - Not all charts or graphs are created in equal
  - The size doesn't match the result, ex: 25% has a bigger pie, 75% has a smaller pie.
  - The pie size should be represented in the correct ratio to 100%, ex : 25% should be 1/4 size of 100%, 50% should be half ... etc.
  - People often use different sizes and types to show different percentage, that is confusing.
  - Avoid to fill in the percentage into a non-uniform shape: overfunction
  - Avoid drawing complex charts or graphs, make you charts or graphs simple and natural

- Why context matters
  - Consider your target to choose your charts

- Three questions to ask
  - Who is your target audience?
  - Is there a "wow" factor in the data?
  - Why am I showing this data?

- Making data relatable
  - Comparing to another example which is easy to understand
    - Ex : the money you spent to smoke everyday can afford your 3 meals plus two bubble tea in one day
 

How to Master Data Visualization. A few rules of thumb for designing with… | by Lucy Todd | Modus (medium.com)