Demonstrating Editorial Focus and Learning About Your Data - Data Visualization: A Successful Design Process - page 48

• One of the biggest challenges, and usually the most time-consuming, is the
acquiring and preparing of the data, ensuring it is it for purpose, and in
good shape in advance of the design stage. We'll explore the mechanics of
working through this often hidden activity.
• Finally, we'll see an example of how we can use visual analysis techniques to
combine the task of familiarizing with our data and discovering key insights.
We will show how learning about the physical properties of data helps you
develop your editorial focus, specify your data questions, and influence the
potential design choices we make later on.
The importance of editorial focus
The following is a quote from Edward Tufte ( http://adage.com/article/
adagestat/edward-tufte-adagestat-q-a/230884/ ):
"Good content reasoners and presenters are rare, designers are not."
In Chapter 2 , Setting the Purpose and Identifying Key Factors , we looked at some of the
considerations involved in identifying the purpose behind your visualization project;
these are as follows:
• What is the reason for its existence?
• For whom are we creating it and how well defined are the requirements?
• What function is it seeking to fulfill?
• What is the likely tone of the design we're intending to portray?
Over the course of the full design process, it is possible that these initial definitions
may need to be modified. As we learn more deeply about the relationship between
what we want to do, what we can do and, importantly, what we should do, our
creative proposition may be molded into a slightly shape.
That's fine and is to be expected. However, the earlier we can make firm judgments
on our creative direction the better. This gives us a solid starting point and helps
inform the important decisions we need to make about what it is we are trying to
say with the visualization we are developing.
The matter of how this is said will be covered in the design stage but, ahead of that
work, we first need to determine what are the specific messages we are looking to
communicate to our audience.
Some of the most influential and esteemed visualization and infographic design
work, perhaps unsurprisingly, comes from newspaper and magazine organizations.