Designing for an Audience - Data Points: Visualization That Means Something - page 585

For example, you've most likely seen the graphic in Figure 6-1. It's the periodic
table of elements. Each square represents a chemical element, and they are
arranged by their atomic number, or the number of protons in the nucleus of
an atom, left to right and top to bottom. The row and column of each element
depends on its electron configuration, which results in groups of elements
with similar characteristics. The second column, for example, is alkaline earth
metals, which are shiny and silver-white.
The data, which is the elements and their properties in this case, dictates the
layout of the periodic table, which actually does represent periodicity and
relationships of the elements. The table is specific to the data it shows.
It doesn't make sense to take the elements out, keep the structure, shove a
different dataset into it and call it the periodic table of whatever, when there's
no periodicity or natural grouping. People have made everything from the
periodic table of typography, to poetry, to beverages. It's usually cleverer
and useful to organize data based on the actual data instead of the atomic
number of chemical elements.
Novel graphics are fine, but don't make them hard to read or nonsensical for the
sake of uniqueness. Instead, make use of the uniqueness or relevance of your data.
FIGURE 6-1 Periodic table of elements