Functional Aesthetics for Data Visualization

My data visualization library contains many books authored by and geared toward data practitioners. Many good books. But Functional Aesthetics for Data Visualization is the first I’ve read that combines theory, research, and practice into its singular vision of data visualization as a medium yet remains accessible to a more general audience.

It's a refreshingly different dataviz text. Integral to what makes it different from other books is the synthesis of perspectives of two women with very different backgrounds--Bridget Cogley was an American Sign Language interpreter prior to her data career, and Vidya Setlur is a researcher particularly interested in natural language processing (NLP). The give and take between perspectives makes the book read like a conversation.

The material presented, particularly in later chapters, is complex, but the method and order of presentation makes it easily consumable. Since it is, in fact, a book about visual communication, it’s unsurprising that there are visual cues in the book. What’s remarkable is the effectiveness of the choices of subtle visual cues. They gently guide you through the material, making sure you’re following the conversation. The bottom of each page is bordered with one of four colors each mapped to one of the four parts of the text–Perception, Semantics, Intent, and Putting It All Together. Next to each important concept, there’s a rounded rectangle with some explanatory text and an accompanying triangle with the word “research” at one point, and “practice” and “theory” at the other two points, respectively. There is a circle inside the triangle, placed to orient the reader to where the concept is currently situated in the landscape of the field of data visualization.

You’re not getting any freebies from Bridget Cogley and Vidya Setlur. No new “best” practices, no “nevers” or “always”, no five easy steps to he perfect dashboard. This book makes no assumptions about your profession, your industry, or your opinion about pie charts. In fact, the only assumption it makes is that you’re a human who can read or be read to. For those of us who are practitioners, Functional Aesthetics challenges us to not only follow the conversation contained within, but to continue it. It subtly nudges us to engage in a conversation between ourselves as creators of data visualizations, our established processes, our assumptions, and our workflows. I took my time reading it because each section left me wanting time to integrate and experiment with some of the ideas in my own visualizations and to re-examine my long-held notions of the “right” ways to approach dataviz.

If you’re new to data visualization, I can’t think of a better book to start with. If you’re a long-time practitioner, Functional Aesthetics will freshen your perspective, leaving you excited to approach your next viz with a beginner’s mind. Everyone’s needs are considered here, and all are invited to the conversation.

Many, if not most, data visualization books focus on the data visualization creator's perspective and goals for their work almost exclusively. This emphasis on the practitioner’s goals is not wrong and doesn’t mean that the user, viewer, or audience is excluded. They’re very much top of mind–as a consumer of what the practitioner wants to serve up, in terms of both graphs and insights. Considerations about the user’s goals with respect to interaction with data visualizations are mostly limited to cases where the user is a business person consuming a business data visualization ("dashboard").

Business stakeholders occupy little space in Functional Aesthetics for Data Visualization, except as users of visualizations like any other user. We now live in a world where we all look at charts and graphs for a variety of reasons. Functional Aesthetics is very much a book for chart creators, but also for chart consumers who might be curious about how charts work and want to increase their level of graphicacy (chart literacy).