Visualizing with Text

Richard Brath has been actively involved in the research, design, and development of data visualization and visual analytics since 1990. His research interests include exploration of the boundaries of visualization – such as this book regarding text and visualization – as well as graph visualization, automated insights, 3D, spreadsheets, aesthetics, and machine learning. From a commercial perspective, Richard focuses on the creation of unique, innovative visualizations that are in use by hundreds of thousands of users. Richard originally acquired a degree in architecture and worked in industrial design, special effects, and 3D animation. With the opportunity to solve business challenges with interactive computer graphics, Richard switched to visualization, creating one of the first interactive 3D financial visualizations on the web (1996). Richard is a partner at Uncharted Software, where his team creates a wide variety of visualizations, ranging from small mobile screens to multi-screen video walls. These visualizations are used in domains such as financial markets, professional sports, health care, journalism, and customer analytics. Richard has a personal blog at richardbrath.wordpress.com.

“A treasure trove of inspiring ideas presented in 250 mind expanding examples, systematic, yet playful; complex, yet simply astonishing.Richard Brath’s delightful tour shows how to integrate text into visualizations and visualizations into text. His charming old examples and eye-opening fresh ideas show readers a remarkable range of possibilities.Wow! This delightful book shows so many fresh ideas and novel visualizations that I had to rethink what I believed was possible. Richard Brath’s book expands my mind in ways I never thought possible. What fun!”--Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland"Attention graphic designers! This is an important and serious book. It’s a delightful invitation to follow Richard Brath down lots of information-related rabbit holes. Brath has collected hundreds of examples of text visualizations from medieval manuscripts to contemporary big data graphics and has designed a hundred more new kinds of text visualizations. Come to think of it, Attention all readers!"-- Nigel Holmes, Graphic Designer, Author, Former Graphics Director, Time Magazine“A systematic study of how text functions as an element of design, not just as a carrier of content but as an intrinsic tool in presenting and organizing that content. Well illustrated and clearly described.”--John Berry, past president of ATypI (Association Typographique Internationale) “Text with imagery is an important tool for supporting effective visual communication. The value of text is seldom exploited to its potential, particularly in the context of information visualization. There is a need for helping people see and understand their data, and effective text can provide takeaways and narratives when combined with charts. I am delighted to endorse Richard Brath’s upcoming book, Visualizing with Text as it serves a useful perspective of visualization with text. The repertoire of topics with thoughtful examples offers the reader an appreciation for the role of text in supporting a better semantic understanding of data.”--Vidya Setlur, Principal Research Scientist, Tableau Software"Visualizing with Text is timely, relevant and provocative. It is also clearly written, and tightly organized. Chapter 13 neatly summarizes the key concepts that have appeared along the way. There are plenty of use cases, primarily derived from research or business. After reading this book, you'll revel in the new sandbox of text, and long to free yourself from the constraints of your tool."--Kaiser Fung, Author, Junk Charts

• ContentsList of Figures and Credits , xviiForeword, xxiiiPreface, xxviiAbout the Author, xxixPart I Defining Text ElementsChapter 1 ◾ Why Visualize with Text? 31.1 WHY TEXT? 31.2 500 YEARS OF PUSHING TEXT OUT OF VISUALIZATIONS 41.3 (RE)LEARNING FROM HISTORY 101.3.1 Cartography 101.3.2 Typography 111.3.3 Tables 131.3.4 Science Classification and Notation 141.3.5 Code Editors 181.3.6 Alphanumeric Charts 191.3.7 Art and Poetry 201.3.8 Graphic Design and Advertising 201.3.9 Comics 221.3.10 Post-Modern Text 231.3.11 Data Visualization 241.4 FURTHER READING 26Chapter 2 ◾ The Design Space of Visualization with Text 272.1 IS TEXT VISUALIZATION? 272.1.1 Visualization as Visual Patterns 282.1.2 Visualization as Organized Inventory 302.1.3 Visualization as Communication 312.2 VISUALIZATION DESIGN SPACE TODAY 312.2.1 Visualization Anatomy 312.2.2 Visualization Encoding 312.3 PREPROCESSING TEXT FOR THE VISUALIZATION PIPELINE 362.4 DERIVING A VISUALIZATION PIPELINE FOR TEXT 372.5 FURTHER READING 40Chapter 3 ◾ Characterizing Text 433.1 LITERAL DATA 433.1.1 Functional Benefits: The Data Contains Text 443.1.2 Perceptual Benefits: Fast, Efficient Access to Detail 443.1.3 Cognitive Benefits: Reasoning Aid 473.1.4 Language Constraints 483.2 TYPOGRAPHIC ATTRIBUTES 493.2.1 Alphanumeric Glyphs (i.e. Letters and Numbers) 503.2.2 Symbols and Paired Delimiters 513.2.3 Weight (and Bold) 523.2.4 Oblique Angle (and Italic) 533.2.5 Underlines 543.2.6 Case (Upper, Lower, Small Caps, and Proper) 553.2.7 Width (Condensed/Expanded, Scaling, and Spacing) 563.2.8 Typeface (i.e. Font) 573.2.9 Low-Level Font Parameters: X-Height, Contrast, Stress,Serif Types, etc. 593.2.10 Shifting Baseline and Text on a Path 613.3 NON-TYPE VISUAL ATTRIBUTES 623.3.1 Size 633.3.2 Rotation 643.3.3 Fill Color 643.3.4 Outline and Outline Color 643.3.5 Gradients or Drop-Shadows 653.3.6 Superimposition and Contrast 663.3.7 Distortion and Extrusion 663.3.8 3D Orientation 663.3.9 Motion 673.3.10 More: Texture, Blur, Transparency, Etc. 673.4 MARKS AND TEXT SCOPE 673.4.1 Point Marks: Characters, Codes, Syllables, and Words 683.4.2 Line Marks: Phrases and Sentences 693.4.3 Area Marks: Paragraphs and Chapters 693.4.4 Readability of Text 713.5 TEXT LAYOUTS: PROSE, TABLES, AND LISTS 713.5.1 Prose 713.5.2 Tables 723.5.3 Lists and Indices 733.6 TEXT INTERACTIONS 743.7 TEXT CHARACTERIZATION FOR VISUALIZATION DESIGNSUMMARY 763.8 FURTHER READING 77Chapter 4 ◾ Using the Design Space 794.1 STRUCTURED DATA AND BERTIN’S PERMUTATIONS 804.2 UNSTRUCTURED DATA ANALYSIS AND NLP 824.3 MULTIPLE ATTRIBUTES 854.4 ROLES FOR TEXT IN VISUALIZATIONS 864.5 VISUALIZATION BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES 904.6 FURTHER READING 93Part II LabelsChapter 5 ◾ Point Labels 975.1 LABELS AS POINT MARKS 975.2 READING IS FASTER THAN INTERACTING 975.3 CODES AS LABELS 995.4 FULL LABELS 1025.5 GROUP LABELS AND VERY LONG LABELS 1045.6 MANY LABELS AND LONG LABELS 1065.7 MASSIVE DATA, LABELS, AND ZOOM 1085.8 FURTHER READING 110Chapter 6 ◾ Distributions 1116.1 HIGHLIGHTING VALUES IN STEM AND LEAF PLOTS 1126.2 LITERAL LEAVES 1136.2.1 Literal Leaves Showing Alphanumeric Codes 1136.2.2 Literal Leaves Showing Words and Phrases 1146.3 LITERAL STEMS AND LITERAL LEAVES 1166.3.1 Literal Stems and Leaves with Codes 1166.3.2 Literal Stems and Leaves with Words 1186.3.3 Literal Stems and Leaves with Phrases 1206.4 STEMS AND LEAF HIERARCHIES AND GRAPHS 1216.4.1 Simple Stems and Leaf Hierarchy 1216.4.2 Stems and Leaf Graph 1226.4.3 Stems and Leaf Hierarchies on a Corpus 1246.5 STEMS AND LEAF INTERACTIONS 1256.6 FURTHER READING 130Chapter 7 ◾ Microtext Lines 1317.1 TEXT ON PATHS 1317.2 THE NEED TO VISUALIZE MANY TIMESERIES 1327.2.1 Line Charts with Many Lines 1357.2.2 Microtext and River Labels with Many Lines 1387.2.3 Do Microtext Lines Work? 1407.2.4 Interactive Microtext Line Charts 1417.3 MICROTEXT APPLIED TO OTHER VISUALIZATION LAYOUTS 1437.4 FURTHER READING 144Part III FormatsChapter 8 ◾ Sets and Categories 1498.1 CHALLENGES VISUALIZING MULTIPLE CATEGORIES 1498.2 INDICATING SET MEMBERSHIP WITH TEXT 1518.3 TYPOGRAPHIC VENN AND EULER DIAGRAMS 1538.4 TYPOGRAPHIC GRAPHS 1568.5 TYPOGRAPHIC SCATTERPLOTS 1618.6 TYPOGRAPHIC MOSAIC PLOTS 1628.7 TYPOGRAPHIC BAR CHARTS WITH STACKED LABELS 1658.8 HANDLING MANY CATEGORIES 1688.8.1 Many Different Visual Attributes 1688.8.2 Visual Attributes Applied to Individual Characters 1718.8.3 Decoding vs. Noticing a Difference 1718.8.4 Going Further 1728.9 FURTHER READING 172Chapter 9 ◾ Maps and Ordered Data 1759.1 PROBLEMS WITH THEMATIC MAPS 1769.2 TYPOGRAPHIC THEMATIC MAP WITH A SINGLE ORDEREDVARIABLE 1779.3 MULTI-VARIATE TYPOGRAPHIC THEMATIC MAPS 1799.4 HANDLING LONG LABELS 1809.5 SCALING TO THOUSANDS OF LABELS 1809.6 NON-DISTORTED TYPOGRAPHIC MAPS 1819.7 TYPOGRAPHIC SCOPE: PARAGRAPHS AND GLYPHS 1819.8 DO TYPOGRAPHIC THEMATIC MAPS WORK? 1849.9 TYPOGRAPHIC ORDERING WITH OTHER ATTRIBUTES ANDLAYOUTS 1869.10 FURTHER READING 187Chapter 10 ◾ Ratios and Quantitative Data 18910.1 QUANTITATIVE DATA 18910.2 PROPORTIONS ALONG A STRING (BAR CHARTS WITH LONGLABELS) 19010.2.1 Proportions along Words and Phrases 19010.2.2 Proportions along Lines of Text 19110.2.3 Proportions to Indicate Ranges 19110.2.4 Proportions, Distributions, and Areas 19210.2.5 Proportions in Paragraphs 19610.2.6 Stacked Proportions 20010.2.7 Multiple Proportions 20010.2.8 Semantic Proportions and Expressive Text 20310.3 POSITIONS ALONG A STRING 20410.4 CAVEATS, ISSUES, AND LIMITATIONS 205Part IV Text LayoutsChapter 11 ◾ Prose and Prosody 21111.1 ENHANCED READING 21111.2 SKIM FORMATTING 21211.3 FORMATTING LETTERS FOR PRONUNCIATION, SPELLING, ANDPROSODY 21811.4 FURTHER READING 220Chapter 12 ◾ SparkWords 22112.1 HISTORIC PRECEDENT FOR SPARKWORDS 22112.2 SPARKWORDS DEFINED 22212.3 SPARKWORDS IN NARRATIVE 22212.3.1 Categoric SparkWords 22212.3.2 Ordered SparkWords 22312.3.3 Quantitative SparkWords 22812.4 SPARKWORDS IN LISTS 23012.5 SPARKWORDS IN TABLES 23012.5.1 Orders of Magnitude 23012.5.2 Tables with Data Added into Typographic Formats 23312.6 FURTHER READING 237Chapter 13 ◾ Opportunity and Checklist 23913.1 VALIDATION 24213.2 CHECKLIST 24213.2.1 Language 24213.2.2 Legibility 24313.2.3 Alphanumeric Codes 24413.2.4 Formats 24413.2.5 Long Labels 24513.2.6 Layout Challenges 24613.2.7 Typeface 24613.2.8 Interactions 24713.2.9 More 247Chapter 14 ◾ References 24914.1 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 24914.2 PEER-REVIEWED RESEARCH 249BIBLIOGRAPHY 252INDEX, 263