Demonstrating Editorial Focus and Learning About Your Data - Data Visualization: A Successful Design Process - page 59

Image from "In Numbers: Education Around the World" ( http://visualdata.dw.de/
specials/bildung/en/index.html ), created by Gregor Aisch for Deutsche Welle
In this example, we see a scatter plot of education spend versus military spend
for all countries. But it is more than just a plot. The designer takes responsibility
for telling the story, providing effective written (labeling and captions), and
visual annotation (reference lines and background shading) to help maximize
the potential insights. The inclusion of filtering features to highlight particular
countries and regions introduces an exploratory dimension to enable the discovery
of further layers of understanding.
This is a strong demonstration of editorial focus and storytelling with data—four key
stories, elegantly told.
What we see with this project is a visualization that answers "data questions". Data
questions are the lines of interrogation and the dimensions of interpretation users
will likely seek to pursue when reading a visualization design.
It's more than just framing a story, it is about the specific insights we are making
accessible. It is the most defined and detailed level of editorial focus we should aim
to achieve. We want our visualization to be able to respond to the most likely and
relevant questions a user will raise about the data and the subject matter.