• David.Poole (5/10/2013Then the presenter said, "now tell me what the visual is actually telling you, extract the useful facts".

    First point is we seem to quickly forget that numbers and text are actually an extremely accurate and well defined data visualization methodology which have been developed over centuries (getting on for millenia). Unusually because of our exceptional shared understanding of their intricacies and familiarity few of us even consider it visualization anymore.

    Secondly I wouldn't underestimate the importance of colour coding things like straight tables to improve understanding. Things like green numbers to highlight rises and reds for drops can brilliantly allow us to focus in on numbers. In situations where quick decisions need to be made or you are constantly monitoring streams of information it can be invaluable for focusing attention.

    Given the above points I would first say that most visulizations should be developed slowly over time with plenty of time and effort put into exactly how they look and the way they can be interacted with. Zooming in and Zooming out might be important along with allowing people to trigger access to detailed figures from the graphs. Also I like to see them continued as a reference point and hopefully maintained in some kind of live feed basis. People are not familiar with graphs / colour indications etc the way they are familiar with text and figures so you need to give your users time to get familiar with what is being shown.

    I have no doubt that suitably understood non standard graphic representations of data are an extremely worthwhile and useful tool that is a valuable addition for users. I hope to include more in my day to day work. Maybe we just need the same amount of effort spent on familiarzing ourselves with data visualization techniques as we've spent on numbers and text symbology.

    I would add that if you are dealing with any land parcel administration system - geographical visualization is not just an add on. The geographic location is actually the primary key and because of its complication in numbers can only be accurately summarised to users by visualization on a map. People will refer to land parcels in multiple ways (plot no, address, field no, postcode) but the only way to truly cross reference such records is to show the accurate boundary on a map and thereafter overlay them against each other.