Section C.1: Data Visualisation + Gestalt Principles

Question 1

What three (3) factors should you consider when choosing a visualisation?

Answer 1

Who is your audience, and what is their level of understanding?
What are the points you are trying to make with the visualisation, what should your audience know?
How can you best communicate these points?

Question 2

What are some key context considerations when visualising data? (8)

Answer 2

Audience - who is audience?
Background - Relevant background information?
Bias - Biases that the audience may have
Familiarity - How familiar is the data to the audience?
Factors - Factors that weaken/strengthen the message
Outcome - What would a successful outcome be?
Purpose - Purpose of the data
Supporting - Supporting evidence

Question 3

What are the seven Gestalt principles of visual perception? (7)

Answer 3

1. Reduce clutter
2. Closure
3. Enclosure
4. Proximity
5. Continuity
6. Connection
7. Similarity

Question 4

The gestalt principle of visual perception Proximity states that…

Answer 4

We tend to perceive elements closer together as being related or grouped, the nearer the elements the more associated they appear.

Question 5

The gestalt principle of visual perception Similarity states that…

Answer 5

We tend to perceive elements that share visual characteristics such as; shape, size, colour, texture, or orientation, as being related or grouped.

Question 6

The gestalt principle of visual perception Enclosure states that…

Answer 6

We tend to perceive elements enclosed by anything forming a visual border around them as being related or grouped. Enclosure causes elements within the visual border to be perceived as a distinct from the rest of the elements.

Question 7

The gestalt principle of visual perception Closure states that…

Answer 7

We tend to perceive segmented visual elements as complete or whole objects, even when parts are missing. Human brains will “fill in the blanks”.

Question 8

The gestalt principle of visual perception Continuity states that…

Answer 8

We tend to perceive series of visual elements as a continuous pattern rather than as abrupt changes.
Similar, to the closure principle in that we perceive a connection to form a whole shape, but we also attach a visual direction as part of the continuation.

Question 9

The gestalt principle of visual perception Connection states that…

Answer 9

We tend to perceive elements that are connected visually as related or grouped. This principle supersedes similarity and proximity, but is weaker than enclosure.

Question 10

The gestalt principle of reducing clutter states that…

Answer 10

We should reduce clutter in visualisations to reduce cognitive load, which leads us to remove parts of visualisations that are not required to understand the data.

Question 11

What is data visualisation?

Answer 11

Data visualisation is the practice of translating information into a visual context, to make the data easier to understand and gather insights from.