Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
One thing to be careful about when using icons or any other shape is not
to rely solely on shape as a means for the analyst to spot patterns. In the
gender icon example, it is really still color that is crucial to seeing trends.
Shape adds clarity to the representation by color, but it does not replace it.
Warning
Icons help bring a story to light by adding clarity and depth but do not
rely on icons or any other shape alone to see broad patterns in dense
data.
When you use icons as the primary shape as shown in Figure 16-3 , they can
be deciphered at relatively small scales. However, they do not have the ideal
relationship with links that circles do, and they include small variations in
area that make indication by size a little less precise. If the graph is small
enough that nodes can be drawn at a larger scale, you could embed the icon
in a circle as an enhancement to it, gaining some of the best of both worlds.
Figure 16-4 shows a small portion of the graph using this approach. This
technique can work when both icon and color are encoding the same thing
as shown here, but it can also work if mapped to different properties like age
and gender.
Icons like the one you see when you want to save a file have become
universally recognizable standards—so recognizable that they can outlive
theobjectorconceptthattheymodel(likethefloppydiskiconthatindicates
Save functionality). Other icons become standards in a particular industry.
Standards serve as a useful shared lexicon to leverage for recognition.
Tip
Wherever possible, you should use (or reference) standard symbols
when choosing or creating icons to facilitate recognition.
 
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