Contents
List of Figures and Credits , xvii
Foreword, xxiii
Preface, xxvii
About the Author, xxix
Part I Defining Text Elements
Chapter 1 ? Why Visualize with Text? 3
1.1 WHY TEXT? 3
1.2 500 YEARS OF PUSHING TEXT OUT OF VISUALIZATIONS 4
1.3 (RE)LEARNING FROM HISTORY 10
1.3.1 Cartography 10
1.3.2 Typography 11
1.3.3 Tables 13
1.3.4 Science Classification and Notation 14
1.3.5 Code Editors 18
1.3.6 Alphanumeric Charts 19
1.3.7 Art and Poetry 20
1.3.8 Graphic Design and Advertising 20
1.3.9 Comics 22
1.3.10 Post-Modern Text 23
1.3.11 Data Visualization 24
1.4 FURTHER READING 26
Chapter 2 ? The Design Space of Visualization with Text 27
2.1 IS TEXT VISUALIZATION? 27
2.1.1 Visualization as Visual Patterns 28
2.1.2 Visualization as Organized Inventory 30
2.1.3 Visualization as Communication 31
2.2 VISUALIZATION DESIGN SPACE TODAY 31
2.2.1 Visualization Anatomy 31
2.2.2 Visualization Encoding 31
2.3 PREPROCESSING TEXT FOR THE VISUALIZATION PIPELINE 36
2.4 DERIVING A VISUALIZATION PIPELINE FOR TEXT 37
2.5 FURTHER READING 40
Chapter 3 ? Characterizing Text 43
3.1 LITERAL DATA 43
3.1.1 Functional Benefits: The Data Contains Text 44
3.1.2 Perceptual Benefits: Fast, Efficient Access to Detail 44
3.1.3 Cognitive Benefits: Reasoning Aid 47
3.1.4 Language Constraints 48
3.2 TYPOGRAPHIC ATTRIBUTES 49
3.2.1 Alphanumeric Glyphs (i.e. Letters and Numbers) 50
3.2.2 Symbols and Paired Delimiters 51
3.2.3 Weight (and Bold) 52
3.2.4 Oblique Angle (and Italic) 53
3.2.5 Underlines 54
3.2.6 Case (Upper, Lower, Small Caps, and Proper) 55
3.2.7 Width (Condensed/Expanded, Scaling, and Spacing) 56
3.2.8 Typeface (i.e. Font) 57
3.2.9 Low-Level Font Parameters: X-Height, Contrast, Stress,
Serif Types, etc. 59
3.2.10 Shifting Baseline and Text on a Path 61
3.3 NON-TYPE VISUAL ATTRIBUTES 62
3.3.1 Size 63
3.3.2 Rotation 64
3.3.3 Fill Color 64
3.3.4 Outline and Outline Color 64
3.3.5 Gradients or Drop-Shadows 65
3.3.6 Superimposition and Contrast 66
3.3.7 Distortion and Extrusion 66
3.3.8 3D Orientation 66
3.3.9 Motion 67
3.3.10 More: Texture, Blur, Transparency, Etc. 67
3.4 MARKS AND TEXT SCOPE 67
3.4.1 Point Marks: Characters, Codes, Syllables, and Words 68
3.4.2 Line Marks: Phrases and Sentences 69
3.4.3 Area Marks: Paragraphs and Chapters 69
3.4.4 Readability of Text 71
3.5 TEXT LAYOUTS: PROSE, TABLES, AND LISTS 71
3.5.1 Prose 71
3.5.2 Tables 72
3.5.3 Lists and Indices 73
3.6 TEXT INTERACTIONS 74
3.7 TEXT CHARACTERIZATION FOR VISUALIZATION DESIGN
SUMMARY 76
3.8 FURTHER READING 77
Chapter 4 ? Using the Design Space 79
4.1 STRUCTURED DATA AND BERTIN'S PERMUTATIONS 80
4.2 UNSTRUCTURED DATA ANALYSIS AND NLP 82
4.3 MULTIPLE ATTRIBUTES 85
4.4 ROLES FOR TEXT IN VISUALIZATIONS 86
4.5 VISUALIZATION BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES 90
4.6 FURTHER READING 93
Part II Labels
Chapter 5 ? Point Labels 97
5.1 LABELS AS POINT MARKS 97
5.2 READING IS FASTER THAN INTERACTING 97
5.3 CODES AS LABELS 99
5.4 FULL LABELS 102
5.5 GROUP LABELS AND VERY LONG LABELS 104
5.6 MANY LABELS AND LONG LABELS 106
5.7 MASSIVE DATA, LABELS, AND ZOOM 108
5.8 FURTHER READING 110
Chapter 6 ? Distributions 111
6.1 HIGHLIGHTING VALUES IN STEM AND LEAF PLOTS 112
6.2 LITERAL LEAVES 113
6.2.1 Literal Leaves Showing Alphanumeric Codes 113
6.2.2 Literal Leaves Showing Words and Phrases 114
6.3 LITERAL STEMS AND LITERAL LEAVES 116
6.3.1 Literal Stems and Leaves with Codes 116
6.3.2 Literal Stems and Leaves with Words 118
6.3.3 Literal Stems and Leaves with Phrases 120
6.4 STEMS AND LEAF HIERARCHIES AND GRAPHS 121
6.4.1 Simple Stems and Leaf Hierarchy 121
6.4.2 Stems and Leaf Graph 122
6.4.3 Stems and Leaf Hierarchies on a Corpus 124
6.5 STEMS AND LEAF INTERACTIONS 125
6.6 FURTHER READING 130
Chapter 7 ? Microtext Lines 131
7.1 TEXT ON PATHS 131
7.2 THE NEED TO VISUALIZE MANY TIMESERIES 132
7.2.1 Line Charts with Many Lines 135
7.2.2 Microtext and River Labels with Many Lines 138
7.2.3 Do Microtext Lines Work? 140
7.2.4 Interactive Microtext Line Charts 141
7.3 MICROTEXT APPLIED TO OTHER VISUALIZATION LAYOUTS 143
7.4 FURTHER READING 144
Part III Formats
Chapter 8 ? Sets and Categories 149
8.1 CHALLENGES VISUALIZING MULTIPLE CATEGORIES 149
8.2 INDICATING SET MEMBERSHIP WITH TEXT 151
8.3 TYPOGRAPHIC VENN AND EULER DIAGRAMS 153
8.4 TYPOGRAPHIC GRAPHS 156
8.5 TYPOGRAPHIC SCATTERPLOTS 161
8.6 TYPOGRAPHIC MOSAIC PLOTS 162
8.7 TYPOGRAPHIC BAR CHARTS WITH STACKED LABELS 165
8.8 HANDLING MANY CATEGORIES 168
8.8.1 Many Different Visual Attributes 168
8.8.2 Visual Attributes Applied to Individual Characters 171
8.8.3 Decoding vs. Noticing a Difference 171
8.8.4 Going Further 172
8.9 FURTHER READING 172
Chapter 9 ? Maps and Ordered Data 175
9.1 PROBLEMS WITH THEMATIC MAPS 176
9.2 TYPOGRAPHIC THEMATIC MAP WITH A SINGLE ORDERED
VARIABLE 177
9.3 MULTI-VARIATE TYPOGRAPHIC THEMATIC MAPS 179
9.4 HANDLING LONG LABELS 180
9.5 SCALING TO THOUSANDS OF LABELS 180
9.6 NON-DISTORTED TYPOGRAPHIC MAPS 181
9.7 TYPOGRAPHIC SCOPE: PARAGRAPHS AND GLYPHS 181
9.8 DO TYPOGRAPHIC THEMATIC MAPS WORK? 184
9.9 TYPOGRAPHIC ORDERING WITH OTHER ATTRIBUTES AND
LAYOUTS 186
9.10 FURTHER READING 187
Chapter 10 ? Ratios and Quantitative Data 189
10.1 QUANTITATIVE DATA 189
10.2 PROPORTIONS ALONG A STRING (BAR CHARTS WITH LONG
LABELS) 190
10.2.1 Proportions along Words and Phrases 190
10.2.2 Proportions along Lines of Text 191
10.2.3 Proportions to Indicate Ranges 191
10.2.4 Proportions, Distributions, and Areas 192
10.2.5 Proportions in Paragraphs 196
10.2.6 Stacked Proportions 200
10.2.7 Multiple Proportions 200
10.2.8 Semantic Proportions and Expressive Text 203
10.3 POSITIONS ALONG A STRING 204
10.4 CAVEATS, ISSUES, AND LIMITATIONS 205
Part IV Text Layouts
Chapter 11 ? Prose and Prosody 211
11.1 ENHANCED READING 211
11.2 SKIM FORMATTING 212
11.3 FORMATTING LETTERS FOR PRONUNCIATION, SPELLING, AND
PROSODY 218
11.4 FURTHER READING 220
Chapter 12 ? SparkWords 221
12.1 HISTORIC PRECEDENT FOR SPARKWORDS 221
12.2 SPARKWORDS DEFINED 222
12.3 SPARKWORDS IN NARRATIVE 222
12.3.1 Categoric SparkWords 222
12.3.2 Ordered SparkWords 223
12.3.3 Quantitative SparkWords 228
12.4 SPARKWORDS IN LISTS 230
12.5 SPARKWORDS IN TABLES 230
12.5.1 Orders of Magnitude 230
12.5.2 Tables with Data Added into Typographic Formats 233
12.6 FURTHER READING 237
Chapter 13 ? Opportunity and Checklist 239
13.1 VALIDATION 242
13.2 CHECKLIST 242
13.2.1 Language 242
13.2.2 Legibility 243
13.2.3 Alphanumeric Codes 244
13.2.4 Formats 244
13.2.5 Long Labels 245
13.2.6 Layout Challenges 246
13.2.7 Typeface 246
13.2.8 Interactions 247
13.2.9 More 247
Chapter 14 ? References 249
14.1 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 249
14.2 PEER-REVIEWED RESEARCH 249
BIBLIOGRAPHY 252
INDEX, 263
