Visualizing with Clarity - Data Points: Visualization That Means Something - page 224

FIGURE 5-26 Showing all data, but shifting focus with highlighting
As shown in Figure 5-28, the focus easily shifts. A brighter color for nonavail-
able or shades of equal brightness take away focus from the main point of
the graphic. A poor choice of color can also lead to misinterpretation, where it
looks like Netflix has the most available streaming movies, even if the legend
indicates otherwise.
Highlighting doesn't always have to be front and center. You can put it in the
background, as shown in Figure 5-29. The unemployment time series data
still keeps focus, but gray bars highlight periods of recession and provide
information outside the primary dataset.