Designing with a Purpose - Data Points: Visualization That Means Something - page 338

FIGurE 9-12 Randomly generated stacked bar chart

P Check out
Lee Byron and
Martin Wat-
tenberg's paper,
“Stacked Graphs—
Geometry and
Aesthetics” for
more information
on streamgraphs.
Several packages
are also available,
such as Protovis
and D3, that en-
able you to design
your own.

If instead you used a streamgraph to show similar data, as shown in Fig-
ure 9-13, you clearly get a different feel. It's more free-flowing and contin-
uous, and instead of peaks and valleys, you have tightening and swelling.
At the same time though, the geometry between the two chart types is
similar. The streamgraph is basically a smoothed stacked bar chart with
the horizontal axis in the center instead of on the bottom.

FIGurE 9-13 Randomly generated streamgraph

Sometimes context can simply come from how you organize shapes and
colors. Figure 9-14 shows a graphic that I made for fun to celebrate the
holidays. The top part shows the ingredients that go into brining your turkey,
and on the bottom is what goes into the turkey when you roast it in the oven.