Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
be available in print for a very long time, so great care should be taken in preparing
the most appropriate display. Exploring data is a much more individual matter, us-
ing graphics tofind information and togenerate ideas. Many displays maybe drawn.
hey can be changed at will or discarded and new versions prepared, so generally no
one plot is especially important, and they all have a short life span. Clearly princi-
ples and guidelines for good presentation graphics have a role to play in exploratory
graphics, but personal taste and individual working style also play important roles.
he same data may be presented in many alternative ways, and taste and customs
differ as to what is regarded as a good presentation graphic. Nevertheless, there are
principlesthat shouldberespectedandguidelinesthataregenerally worth following.
No one should expect a perfect consensus where graphics are concerned.
Background
2.2
History
2.2.1
Data graphics may be found going very far back in history, but most experts agree
that they really began with the work of Playfair a little more than
years ago. He
introduced some modern basic plots (including the barchart and the histogram) and
produced pertinent and eye-catching displays (Fig.
.
). Wainer and Spence recently
republished a collection of his works (Playfair,
). Not all his graphics could be
described as good, but most were. In the second half of the
th century Minard
prepared impressive graphics, including his famous chart of Napoleon's advance on
and retreat from Moscow. he French Ministry of Public Works used his ideas to
attractive,andpresumablypertinent,effectinanannualseriesofpublications(Album
de Statistique Graphique)from
to
,presentingeconomicdatageographically
for France. Examples can be found in Michael Friendly's chapter in this topic.
In the first half of the last century graphics were not used in statistics as much as
theymighthave been. Interestingly, thesecond chapterinFisher's Statistical Methods
for Research Workers in
wasondiagramsfordata,sohe,atleast,thoughtgraphics
important. In Vienna there was a group led by Otto Neurath which worked exten-
sively on pictograms in the
s and early
s. hey produced some well-crated
displays, which were forerunners of the modern infographics. (Whether Fig.
.
is
improved by including the symbols at the top to represent the USA is a matter of
taste.)
With the advent of computers, graphics went into a relative decline. Computers
were initially bad for graphics for two reasons. Firstly, much more complex analytic
modelscould be evaluated and, quite naturally, modelling received a great deal more
attention than displaying data. Secondly, only simple and rather ugly graphics could
be drawn by early computers. he development of hardware and sotware has turned
allthis around.Inrecent years ithasbeenvery easytoproducegraphics, andfar more
can beseen than before.Whichis,ofcourse,all themorereason tobeconcerned that
graphics be drawn well.
