dataviz

The ruled edge of a chart that maps position to value: scale, ticks, and labels that make the marks readable as numbers.

A drawing of data in which position, length, angle or colour carries the numbers, chosen so the comparison a reader needs is the easiest one to see.

A note pinned onto the data itself: a callout, arrow, or highlighted span that tells the reader what to see in the chart.

The key beside a chart that decodes series colours and symbols into names, and the first thing direct labeling tries to delete.

Whiskers on a mark showing the range a value could plausibly take, so a chart does not imply precision it does not have.

A dial style readout showing one value on an arc between a minimum and a maximum, borrowed from instrument panels.

A line drawn at a meaningful value across a chart: a target, a threshold, an average, a before-and-after moment.

A tiny chart with no axes or labels, drawn inline at text size to show the shape of a trend beside the number it belongs to.

A single number shown large with a label and often a change indicator, the unit a dashboard is built from.

How wide a chart is for its height, which sets the slopes of its lines; banking to 45 degrees keeps rates of change readable.

A grid of tiles, each holding one metric, chart or list, that a reader can often resize and rearrange.

The same small chart repeated in a grid, once per category, so comparison happens by eye movement instead of overplotting.

Tufte's word for ink that decorates a chart without carrying data: 3D bevels, gradient fills, mascots, gridline thickets.

Tufte's measure of chart economy: the share of ink that would be missed if erased, with everything else a candidate for deletion.

Writing series names next to the data instead of in a legend, trading a lookup for a glance.

Two value axes sharing one plot so two series can be compared, and a free knob for manufacturing whatever correlation you like.

Starting a value axis above zero so differences look bigger than they are; honest for lines and dots, a lie for bars.

Dragging a selection across one chart to highlight the same records in every linked view.

A data palette of distinct hues at roughly equal visual weight, used for groups that have no order so no colour reads as larger than another.

A data palette built from two sequential scales meeting at a neutral midpoint, used when values run above and below a meaningful zero.

A data palette that runs light to dark in one direction, encoding an ordered quantity so that darker always means more.

The text alternative for a chart: a summary of the takeaway plus access to the underlying values, not a recital of the pixels.

Turning data into sound, mapping a series to pitch or rhythm, so a chart can be heard as a shape rather than described one value at a time.

The rule that colour must never be the only carrier of meaning, so a red field also needs an icon, wording, or shape change.