Creating engaging visualisations is one of the best ways to make your data useful. Taking anything from massive data sets down to a simple list, if we know the questions that we are asking of that data and the decisions we need to make - then we can design an interactive visualisation to accomplish the task. This talk examines the key traits of human perception and how they might be applied to make your interactive visual designs more effective. Presented at dot_york and mcr_fred in 2015

1. Data Visualisation
for humans
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2. Take this…
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3. Re-visualise @dot_york@rick_threlfall 3
WHAT QUESTION
NEEDS
ANSWERING?

4. Pop-out@rick_threlfall 4
BUY ME BUY ME BUY ME
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5. Data Visualisation for Humans
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6. Just Say No!
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7. Ben Fry - Computational Information Design
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8. Questions and Decisions
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9. Rule of Visualisation #1
If you can ask the question simply…
… then you can visualise an answer
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10. Design for Perception and Context
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11. The Human Factor
Effective Visualisation…
… Facilitates Perception
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12. Evolved!
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13. Raw data versus…
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Rock - Mon - 23
Metal - Mon - 18
Audiobook - Mon - 2
Jazz - Mon - 0
Country - Mon - 0
Rock - Tues - 2
Metal - Tues - 4
Audiobook - Tues - 3
Jazz - Tues - 0
Country - Tues - 8
Rock - Wed - 11
Metal - Wed - 8
Audiobook - Wed - 3
Jazz - Wed - 0
Country - Wed - 0
Rock - Thu - 5
Metal - Thou - 0
Audiobook - Thu - 2
Jazz - Thu - 9
Country - Thu - 0
Rock - Fri - 9
Metal - Fri - 12
Audiobook - Fri - 2
Jazz - Fri - 0
Country - Fri - 0
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14. Tables versus…
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Listens
Rock Metal Audiobook Jazz Country
Mon 23 18 2 0 0
Tues 2 4 3 0 8
Wed 11 8 3 0 0
Thu 5 0 2 9 0
Fri 9 12 2 0 0
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15. graphic … better?
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Mon
Tues
Wed
Thu
Fri
0 12.5 25 37.5 50
Rock Metal Audiobook Jazz Country
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16. You need to know the question
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Rock Metal Audiobook Jazz Country
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17. what’s this?
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18. and this?
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19. spot the outlier
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20. spot the outlier
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21. pre-attentive processing
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22. pre-attentive processing
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23. spot the outlier
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24. Rule of Visualisation #2
Turn something you *need to find…
… into something that you can see
*or would like somebody to find
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25. err… where do I click?
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* this has been fixed a bit now

26. aha! that’s where :)
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27. is everything OK?
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28. patterns
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29. FOCUS
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30. effectively direct narrow attention
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31. aaargh! short term memory fail
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Rock Metal Audiobook Jazz Country
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32. Rule of Visualisation #3
If it’s not part of the answer…
… then I don’t need to see it
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33. Perception is an Interactive Process
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Mon
Tues
Wed
Thu
Fri
0 12.5 25 37.5 50
Rock Metal Audiobook Jazz Country
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34. Most Popular Category… Misc
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35. Turn the Question…
… into a Perception Problem
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Q
U
E
S
T
I
O
N
I N T E R A C T
P
O
P
O
U
T
V
I
S
U
A
L
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36. For the greater good
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37. Thank You!
Some Lessons Learned
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