Graphical displays of data - Visualization helps

Good creation of visual data is a skill. It takes a creative and statistical mind to see how to represent data, but it is a vital skill when there are large complex datasets. A good graph can tell a better story than any column of numbers or written paragraph. A good graph can compact information but also spotlight the most important issues within a dataset.

Howard Wainer's Graphic Discovery: A Trout in the Milk and other Visual Adventures discusses the development of graphical representations and why they are so relevant. This work is similar to the path-breaking books by Ed Tufte.

Wainer focuses on the father of graphical displays of data William Playfair. A true character (con artist) of the 19th century, Playfair worked hard to find ways of representing data in unique format so as to tell a story. Below are some examples from his book. These are just some of the stories that Wainer uses to tell the reader about data displays.

This first graph displays wheat and wages of workers. Notice how he uses two scales to tell the story.

Here we have a description of the balance of payments. Instead of two lines he has filled an area to more dramatically tell the story.

Our the third example describes the national debt with key wars marked as expenses.Think what the US deficit would look like if did a similar graph.

We need to work on our display of data to tell better stories about the complexity of the global macro environment.