Qualities of great visualizations

Lecture 02

Dr. Benjamin Soltoff

Cornell University
INFO 3312/5312 - Summer 2026

August 27, 2026

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Learning objectives

  • Define Cairo’s five qualities of great visualizations
  • Discuss the importance of truth in visualizing data
  • Evaluate the effectiveness of a chart’s design based on these qualities

The five qualities of great visualizations

Great visualizations

  • Truthful
  • Functional
  • Beautiful
  • Insightful
  • Enlightening

Source: Alberto Cairo, The Truthful Art

Truthful visualizations

  • Truth is a continuum
  • Avoid self-deception
  • Be honest with your audience

Truncated axes

Image credit: How Charts Lie

Functional visualizations

  • Choose graphic forms according to the tasks you wish to enable
  • What is the purpose of the visualization?
  • Who is the intended audience?

Obesity and poverty in the United States

Population in the United States

Adjusted for population

Scatterplot

Beautiful visualizations

A measure of the emotional experience of awe, wonder, pleasure, or mere surprise that those objects may unleash

  • People prefer to look at aesthetically pleasing things
  • Beauty is subjective, but still exists

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Image credit: Designer’s Guide to Creating Charts and Diagrams by Nigel Holmes

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Image credit: Charted: Median House Prices vs. Income in the U.S.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Insightful visualizations

Good visualizations clear the path to making valuable discoveries that woudl be inaccessible if the information were presented in a different way

  • Spontaneous insight vs. knowledge-building
  • Know your story and audience

Not insightful

Image credit: xkcd

Insightful

Image credit: IPCC and Michael Mann/Penn State

Enlightening visualizations

Do good with data

  • Not all topics are equally important
  • Elevate socially relevant topics

Image credit: David Waldron

Image credit: mattsmithetc

Application exercise

ae-01

Critique a visualization

Work in teams of 2-3 students

  • Critique your assigned visualization with respect to the five qualities of great visualizations
  • Identify three specific design choices you would make to improve the visualization on one or more of the five qualities

Wrap up

Recap

  • Pursue truth in your visualizations
  • Make your visualizations functional for the intended audience
  • People like to look at pretty things - make your visualizations aesthetically pleasing
  • Insightful visualizations help people make discoveries
  • Use data for good