COMPUTER SCIENTISTS AT HARVARD AND COGNITIVE SCIENTISTS AT
MIT TEAM UP TO SETTLE A DEBATE OVER "CHART JUNK"
It’s easy to spot a “bad” data visualization—one packed with
too much text, excessive ornamentation, gaudy colors, and clip art. Design guru
Edward Tufte derided such decorations as redundant at best, useless at worst,
labeling them “chart junk.” Yet a debate still rages among visualization
experts: Can these reviled extra elements serve a purpose?
Taking a scientific approach to design, researchers from
Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology are offering a new
take on that debate. The same design elements that attract so much criticism,
they report, can also make a visualization more memorable.