Visualizations should show the data, induce thinking about substance rather than design or technology, and avoid distortion. They should encourage comparison, reveal details at multiple levels, serve a clear purpose like description or exploration, and integrate with statistical and verbal descriptions. Effective visualizations strive for content focus, comparison over description, integrity, high resolution, and use of proven classic designs. When evaluating graphs, key principles include apprehension, clarity, consistency, efficiency, necessity, and truthfulness.

1. Topic: Principles of Graphics and
Visual Display
Reporter: Aileen N. Carrillo
MINDANAO UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCEANDTECHNOLOGY
College of Policy Studies, Education, and Management
EDU 51a: Educational Technology with Field Study
Class of Professor Ivanhoe Onate

2. Visualizations should:
> show the data
> induce the viewer to think about the substance
rather than about methodology, graphic
design, the technology, or something else
> avoid distortion
> sets coherent

3. > encourage the eye to compare different pieces
of data
> reveal the data at several levels of detail, from
a broad overview to the fine structure
> serve a reasonably clear purpose: description,
exploration, tabulation, or decoration
> be closely integrated with the statistical and
verbal descriptions of a data set.

4. Visualizations should strive towards the
following goals:
• content focus
• comparison rather than mere description
• integrity
• high resolution
• utilization of classic designs and concepts
proven by time.

5. Graphical Display
Apprehension:
• Ability to correctly perceive relations among
variables.
Does the graph maximize apprehension of the
relations among variables?
Clarity:
• Ability to visually distinguish all the elements
of a graph.
Are the most important elements or relations
visually most prominent?

6. Consistency:
• Ability to interpret a graph based on similarity
to previous graphs.
Are the elements, symbol shapes and colors
consistent with their use in previous graphs?
Efficiency:
• Ability to portray a possibly complex relation in
as simple a way as possible.
Are the elements of the graph economically
used?
Is the graph easy to interpret?

7. Necessity:
• The need for the graph, and the graphical elements.
Is the graph a more useful way to represent the data
than alternatives (table, text)?
Are all the graph elements necessary to convey the
relations?
Truthfulness:
• Ability to determine the true value represented by any
graphical element by its magnitude relative to the
implicit or explicit scale.
Are the graph elements accurately positioned and
scaled?
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