ETF5922 Chap.1 Visualisation Purpose and Audience
Visualisation Purpose and Audience
Exploration before explanation
Exploration is used to discover important features in data, whereas communication presents an understanding to other people. A manager, technical analyst and public reader may need different levels of detail from the same dataset.
Audience choices change the display
Titles, ordering and annotations should reveal the question instead of merely decorating a finished plot.
A pattern can be described from a display without treating it as proof of a cause.
A purpose audit before release
Rebuild the display when another reader must understand it without the analyst present.
A communication graphic needs a declared purpose, stable labels, selected evidence and enough context to support the intended decision.
A purpose audit before release in context
Purpose also determines what evidence must be acquired before chart construction. A request to explain operational causes needs variables about staffing, demand or process, not only a weekly outcome sequence.
A request to show recent change can be answered from the four values if the baseline is declared. This distinction prevents design effort from disguising an evidence gap. It also guides annotation: label the comparison the data can support, keep earlier weeks as context, and state that causal explanation lies outside the observed scope.
When several audiences share a page, preserve a common numerical core while changing detail through hierarchy or optional notes rather than changing the underlying claim.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Exploration is used to discover important features in data, whereas communication presents an understanding to other people.
- 02
A manager, technical analyst and public reader may need different levels of detail from the same dataset.
- 03
Titles, ordering and annotations should reveal the question instead of merely decorating a finished plot.
- 04
A pattern can be described from a display without treating it as proof of a cause.
- 05
Use exploration and communication to frame the reader's task
- 06
Check audience against decision before styling
- 07
Explain how message changes the visible comparison
- 08
Audit annotation without removing necessary context
From reader brief to measured claim
- 3Extract the quantities from the scenario and preserve their order. The latest increase is 95 - 79 = 16 cases, and 16 / 79 = 20.
- 3Verify the arithmetic and attach the original unit to every intermediate result.
- 2Choose an encoding that asks the eye to make the same comparison, then state why no causal conclusion follows.
Key terms
- Exploration
- Rapid, provisional plotting used to discover structure before a public claim is selected.
- Communication
- A reader-facing explanation that removes irrelevant alternatives while retaining evidence and context.
- Audience
- The people, prior knowledge and decision conditions for which the visual is designed.
- Annotation
- Text or marks that point to a value, event or qualification the reader should not have to infer.
Visualisation Purpose and Audience FAQ
When should an exploratory plot become a communication graphic?
Rebuild the display when another reader must understand it without the analyst present. A communication graphic needs a declared purpose, stable labels, selected evidence and enough context to support the intended decision.
What evidence belongs in an audience brief?
Name the intended reader, the decision or comparison, the observation scope and the action the graphic should support. Include the denominator for any percentage and the main limitation. This information lets design choices be assessed against a concrete task instead of personal taste.
How can I test whether annotation is doing useful work?
Hide the annotation and ask a fresh reader to state the main comparison. Restore it and check whether accuracy or speed improves. Useful annotation identifies evidence, context or uncertainty; redundant annotation repeats what aligned position already makes obvious and can compete with the focal mark.
What should remain unchanged across audience versions?
The recorded values, their units, observation order and calculation base should not change merely because the reader changes. What can change is hierarchy, terminology and the amount of supporting detail. Keeping a common evidential core prevents an executive view and a technical view from making incompatible claims from the same four weeks.
Exam move
Write three briefs for one dataset: an analyst exploring, a manager deciding and a public reader learning. Sketch a different visual for each, circle the comparison each reader must make, and calculate the headline change independently. End by removing any annotation that does not serve the declared decision and by adding one qualification the chosen audience could otherwise miss.
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