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Nicely presented data can certainly inspire confidence, which might or might not be justified, but I think attractive presentation can be more than just a sales
by Chris_Newton 3y ago
Nicely presented data can certainly inspire confidence, which might or might not be justified, but I think attractive presentation can be more than just a sales pitch. Ultimately, we create these visualisations to convey information to someone else, so good presentation should help that someone to navigate and understand that information, and it should avoid introducing unwanted bias or ambiguity.
If that means creating an overview of the system architecture for new team members that uses pretty colours and multiple fonts and icons and shaded boxes but that helps them to understand the system more quickly and correctly than an overwhelming page of black-and-white text and arrows, the extra styling has done its job.
- bluGill 3y agoYou are confusing good and readable with beautiful. A pencil sketch can be readable and good, yet still look like it can be changed. By contrast if you make it look like perfect it will look like it cannot be changed.
- Chris_Newton 3y agoSorry, I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make here. Finding ways to present information that are both functional and attractive — and stay both of those things as the information evolves — can be a challenge, but I don’t believe those are completely independent axes and I don’t think achieving and sustaining both in combination is an unrealistic ideal. Indeed, I’ve spent a significant part of my professional life creating specialised user interfaces for various products that try to do exactly that.
- bluGill 3y agoThe point is if something looks too polished people assume that polish is all the way. You look at a polished chart different from a sketch. If I show you a napkin sketch of some new idea I have you understand it is new and not well thought out, thus you ask is the big picture idea correct. If instead the same idea is well polished in full color you think the big picture is correct and start looking at details that might need some adjustment. Depending on what sort of feedback you want, you need different types of drawing.
- ska 3y agoThis is true, and why some diagramming packages include "draft" modes that intentionally change the presentation to make it look less permanent/polished looking.