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Introduction
Correct. It is assumed that all data presented has been checked by the manufacturer before distribution. Clear. The presentation should always have a specific purpose and the presentation of the resulting information should fulfill the purpose – whether in tables, graphics or text.
Preface
Audience
Within the private sector, the book is applicable to all levels of management and to others who communicate numerical information (sales information, performance measures, product information, process information): again this is at all levels of the sector. These are used to illustrate the rationale for some of the diagrammatic representations of the data.
How to read
Only basic arithmetic skills are assumed – and some basic principles are reformulated so that even these are not taken as given. Therefore, this book is applicable to everyone in the university system – from freshmen to PhD students, to those in the public administration of a country – from the lowest to the highest levels and for all levels of researchers – especially those who need to present numerical information .
Acknowledgements
Understanding number
- Thousands separator
- Decimal separator
- Level of detail in comparisons
- Justification of data
- Basic rounding
- Effective rounding
Using the principle of looking to the left of the column, fund D is the top performer. Then it is clear that the lower number is the larger of the two, as it is one digit further to the left than the first number.
Summary of principles: Understanding number
Notes
- Position of totals in tables
- What is a table?
- Reference tables
- Summary tables
- How tables are read
- Layout of data in tables
- Capital letters for table titles and headings in tables
- Use of bold typeface
- Use of gridlines and other lines in tables
The organization of the numbers in the table is in a classification order, alphabetical or numerical code order;. Of course, if the data is obscured, some adjustment of the color must be accomplished.
Summary of principles: Tables
TABLES 31 would make them a bit easier to read, more thought on table construction and the use of whitespace would do the same job without spending more time setting up line shading. If color is used as shading, it is also important to photocopy or print the page on a black and white printer to see the effect.
Charts (bar charts, histograms, pie charts, graphs)
How the user interprets charts
None of these reasons are sufficient to justify the inclusion of the poor charts, and the basic rationale will be explained in this chapter. The bag on the right is twice the width of the first one. What is to be presented here is an image of two bags, one for each of the two million as in Figure 3.2.
Written aims for charts
By 'correct' we mean here that the image accurately and clearly represents the data and the message from them. Here, the clustering of the data is state within county, where the legend shows the different states. To show the differences in modes of transport to work between counties. We are then interested in seeing how the modes of transport differ between the counties, and the clustering is thus by mode of transport and not by county as in figure 3.3.
Scale definition and display
In Figure 3.7, each of the bars is separated, so the area of the bar relative to the other bars is clear. The message from the chart is that most areas are similar over time, with London significantly higher than the others. This diagram not only has no redundancy, but also gives a better definition of the differences compared to Figure 3.14.
Difference between bar charts and histograms
Pie chart principles
A letter was sent to the head of the organization stating the basic principle of a pie chart and the sum of its component parts. The purpose of the chart is obviously to look at the varying rates of recidivism among prisoners in the United States. So, for illustrative purposes only, the arithmetic mean of the percentages is used as the base figure in Figure 3.24.
Issues with pie charts
Consider the top segment in Figure 3.25: is it above or below a quarter of the pie. Comparing the actual percentages, it is clear that the segments at the front of the pie chart are given greater weight than those without any apparent depth. In Figure 3.32, the graph has segments of the pie for each age group, their size relative to the numbers known to have HIV (the prevalence).
Graph principles
Issues with graphs
The purpose of the graph would then not be the presentation of the absolute values of the data, but the changes in the data over time. Furthermore, it is not easy to notice the movements in the data or the data values over time. Here, in a redrawn graph, Figure 3.53, the producer has shown the growth in the number of people registered with credit unions on top of the graph itself.
Pictogram principles
So, redrawing this in Excel and ranking the continents by number of users in 2012, we have Figure 3.55. And it would be difficult for any user to figure it out in 2 minutes - because of the point of calculation and the way it is defined (ask if the proportion of voting only in national is the same as those who voted in neither). So, at the beginning of the chapter, we used a money bag; in Figure 3.57, we have used people and Figure 3.58 uses cars - as the topic is the availability of cars in the household.
Comparative charts: Multiple pies, multiple bar charts, double scale graphs
If we were to use this ratio for the radii, the relative sizes of the circles would be 𝜋(1×1) square units:𝜋(1.5×1.5) square units. And then we ask them to rate the change in the size of the segments. So the purpose of the graph would be to show the differences in the proportions of travelers using each mode of transportation to work.
Graphics
Now it becomes clear: the ridiculous figure for the World Record for the long jump is actually the World Record for the javelin. If we look at the data, it could be that the Olympic record is actually 55.70m, the zero is dropped because of the program in which it is held. The data was presented in a proportional space font which is contrary to the principle of the line of the figures in columns of the same value.
Three-dimensional charts
The absence of a zero in the units column for India indicates that the data was not effectively checked before publication. Many examples can be found where the graph or chart is not drawn correctly to represent the data well. If the data is three-dimensional, for example in surface mapping in topology studies, the appropriate diagram may be three-dimensional.
Summary of principles: Charts
However, note that many users will have difficulty interpreting such charts, so it is essential that the purpose of the chart is clear and that the resulting chart compares well with the goal to see that the goal is being achieved. Barnard in Printer's Ink: 'A look is worth a thousand words', inPrinter's Ink, December 1921, and 'A picture is worth ten thousand words' in Printer's Ink, March 1927. The original was Figure 1 in the 2013 edition of Central London Peak Count (CAPC), Travel in London supplementary report.
Numbers in text
- Numbers written as text
- Correct numbers
- Clear numbers
- Concise numbers
- Consistent numbers
- Ordering of data
- Technical terms
- Plain language
- Emotive language
- Key messages
But how many of us would read the number and remember all the numbers. Again, therefore, the message of the piece is not clear and the numbers not concise. Finally, let's go back to the example used at the end of the technical language section.
Summary of principles: Numbers in text
NUMBERS IN TEXT 105 All significant technical parts of a publication must be placed in an appendix: for example, the sampling strategy, the questionnaire design, the survey operation. With the Internet available now, such commonalities of studies and the details of data collections should be more readily available.
Data presentation on the Internet
The early years
Several reported that some data was not the most recent for all periods shown. The first versions of this had all the tables in the PDF and were not accessible, which meant a lot of data had to be retyped. However, where the data is available separately, links to the relevant database are provided at the bottom of the message.
Statistics on CD-ROMs
DATA PRESENTATION ON THE INTERNET 115 A better presentation would therefore be in Table 5.2 which follows the style guide of the originating organization. The principle used was that of hyperlinking to both the different aspects of the information (what we now call navigation), but also to explanations of words in the text. It is similar to the Encarta model in that all the meta information is collected in one place.
Data on the Internet
The contents page linked to a page designed as in the paper edition, but each table heading was linked directly to an Excel version of the table. As of 2003, it is neither produced in paper nor online, but most of the data is available through the office's distribution system. In addition to the organization of workbooks, it is essential to pay attention to the presentation of the data itself, especially in its formatting.
Charts on the Internet
Other presentations also allow investigating the data in the chart and accessing individual data values. In Figure 5.12, the data for each of the years is displayed in the selected time series traces (allowing the user to compare trends over time for different countries). Some of the variables are only available through an "For Advanced User" link to assist the user.
Text on the Internet
Effective data visualization allows the user to explore the data live on their computer screen. Such exploration then facilitates the development of messages from the data and allows the user to better understand the relationships within the data sets. Not putting these key messages on the press release page forces the user to open the release itself to try to find the key message.
Summary of principles: Data presentation on the Internet
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