Graphical perception has a huge impact on the reader!The angle difference, the change of color actually do not feel?
Let’s talk about Graphical Perception! In the process of graphing data, we usually use various forms of graphs.
Whether it is the common table, bar chart, pie chart, parallel cordinates, etc., we use different colors, lengths, slopes, alignments, etc. to help the reader quickly grasp the main points.
But, which ways are most effective for the reader’s senses? We can refer to the 1984 study by William S. Cleveland and Robert McGill 《Graphical Perception: Theory, Experimentation, and Application to the Development of Graphical Methods》.
I have compared the differences between the following projects and share a few useful tips below.
➤Readers are not sensitive to angle differences
➤The volume of 3D graphics can cause misjudgment
Let’s ignore the fact that people often misuse pie charts. As we can see from the figure below, only when the difference in angle is large enough (<left> below), the reader can clearly and quickly grasp the difference.
However, in the case of <center> and <right> below, in addition to the difficulty of identifying 3D pie charts, it is also impossible to quickly see the differences between items, whether the percentages are close or much different.
➤The easiest thing for the reader to notice: the difference in position in the ruler
The difference in position in the same scale or in different scales is the easiest for the reader to detect compared to other perceptual experiments. By organizing the data in tabular columns, the naked eye can quickly detect changes in the data.
For example, in a class math score table, a 3-digit number of 100 can be detected at a glance (of course, so can the individual digits!).
➤In a graph, the colors that can be distinguished by the naked eye are limited
There are not many colors that can be clearly distinguished by the human eye, so you should avoid using too many colors in a chart. Therefore, it is important to prevent the reader from spending too much effort in recognizing your diagram.
In addition to the fact that the naked eye is not as sensitive to different colors as one might think, changes in color saturation are not easily noticeable to the reader. If you really want to use it, it is probably suitable for reports that do not meet the work requirements.
We need to provide accurate, clear, and easy-to-understand graphics for the following reasons. When we can better understand the brain’s discrimination patterns, we can help readers grasp information more quickly and reduce their burden of understanding data and graphics.
