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From a usability perspective, "sketchy" or "cartoony" charts actually serve a purpose. To me, they communicate "the trend is important here, not the precise num

From a usability perspective, "sketchy" or "cartoony" charts actually serve a purpose. To me, they communicate "the trend is important here, not the precise numbers". This can more acurately convey communication intent as opposed to a precise rendered graph.

ianbooker 8y ago
I think I agree on the core idea, but if you extrapolate this into font selection, for example, you would rather pick Comic Sans for more "strategic" and abstract projects? ;)
- ericsoderstrom 8y ago
  (Clearly you're joking) but this isn't an extrapolation. Lines that make up characters in a font don't have any semantic meaning related to the words. Lines in a graph do have semantic meaning related to the data they represent. [edit] maybe you could make this argument for a language like Chinese. At least for characters with semantically meaningful radicals.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >Lines that make up characters in a font don't have any semantic meaning related to the words. Err, actually they do. If not the line itself, the font's overall design does. A font can look casual, another official, fun, etc. In fact this very post uses the "Humor Sans" font for the graphs for exactly this very reason. To make labels appear more casual.
- stared 8y ago
  Not necessarily. For Comics Sans it is hard to know if it is an intentional or just sloppiness. For xkcd plots, it is clear that someone put an extra effort in making it look sketchy.
- abhinavsharma 8y ago
  Balsamiq is software that’s an example where picking deliberately poor fonts is a common thing to do in low-fidelity prototyping. It helps because it focuses attention on higher level elements over nitpicking on details https://balsamiq.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5cTZhKzm4AIVtx-tBh3OMgtNEAAYASAAEgK6zvD_BwE https://balsamiq.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5cTZhKzm4AIVtx-tBh3O...
- woofie11 8y ago
  I've certainly used comic sans intentionally when presenting data. Much of this depends on audience too. A corporate board meeting is quite different from an activity with a group of rowdy 8-year-olds from a presentation in a university class from a tight-nit group of friends launching a startup. Some comes down to power hierarchy too. Presenting up, I'm much more likely to try to appear professional. Presenting down, I go for approachable.
stared 8y ago
"Why xkcd-style graphs are important" (2014) https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2014/why_xkcd_style_graphs_are_important.html https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2014/why_xkcd_style_graph... provides a rationale for such plots.
- a_square_peg 8y ago
  Funny enough, I posted an animated plot on Reddit generated using the Matplotlib xkcd style a couple of months ago and the top comments were about the choice of font - for people not familiar with the xkcd comic, this seemed to be distraction point. https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/9wcsm5/distribution_of_temperature_change_since_1950_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/9wcsm5/dis...

ianbooker 8y ago

I think I agree on the core idea, but if you extrapolate this into font selection, for example, you would rather pick Comic Sans for more "strategic" and abstract projects? ;)

ericsoderstrom 8y ago
(Clearly you're joking) but this isn't an extrapolation. Lines that make up characters in a font don't have any semantic meaning related to the words. Lines in a graph do have semantic meaning related to the data they represent. [edit] maybe you could make this argument for a language like Chinese. At least for characters with semantically meaningful radicals.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Lines that make up characters in a font don't have any semantic meaning related to the words. Err, actually they do. If not the line itself, the font's overall design does. A font can look casual, another official, fun, etc. In fact this very post uses the "Humor Sans" font for the graphs for exactly this very reason. To make labels appear more casual.
stared 8y ago
Not necessarily. For Comics Sans it is hard to know if it is an intentional or just sloppiness. For xkcd plots, it is clear that someone put an extra effort in making it look sketchy.
abhinavsharma 8y ago
Balsamiq is software that’s an example where picking deliberately poor fonts is a common thing to do in low-fidelity prototyping. It helps because it focuses attention on higher level elements over nitpicking on details https://balsamiq.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5cTZhKzm4AIVtx-tBh3OMgtNEAAYASAAEgK6zvD_BwE https://balsamiq.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5cTZhKzm4AIVtx-tBh3O...
woofie11 8y ago
I've certainly used comic sans intentionally when presenting data. Much of this depends on audience too. A corporate board meeting is quite different from an activity with a group of rowdy 8-year-olds from a presentation in a university class from a tight-nit group of friends launching a startup. Some comes down to power hierarchy too. Presenting up, I'm much more likely to try to appear professional. Presenting down, I go for approachable.

stared 8y ago

"Why xkcd-style graphs are important" (2014) https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2014/why_xkcd_style_graphs_are_important.html https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2014/why_xkcd_style_graph... provides a rationale for such plots.

a_square_peg 8y ago
Funny enough, I posted an animated plot on Reddit generated using the Matplotlib xkcd style a couple of months ago and the top comments were about the choice of font - for people not familiar with the xkcd comic, this seemed to be distraction point. https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/9wcsm5/distribution_of_temperature_change_since_1950_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/9wcsm5/dis...