Data Visualization

This page is generated. Do not edit it by hand — run scripts/atlas-vocab.py.

part of Design · tier 2 · Video · 39 pieces of work carry it · 3 crafts it is confused with

The craft, and who hires it

Hired when a brand needs numbers to persuade: data-driven marketing, explainer videos, corporate presentations and reports, research storytelling, and product narratives carried by designed charts rather than claims alone.

The craft of designing visual representations of data and information — charts, graphs, maps, diagrams, and animated or interactive data graphics whose encodings (axes, scales, marks, motion) were deliberately authored to make quantitative information legible and persuasive. (Refines the prior text: 'Visual representations of data or information, often animated or dynamic.')

Tag it when…

Tag when a DESIGNED data representation is the visible craft: charts, graphs, diagrams, maps, or animated statistics with authored encodings — whether static, animated, or interactive, and regardless of what kind of piece carries them.

Never tag it when…

Never tag bare on-screen numbers or stat text with no data encoding — a big animated '87%' alone is Motion Graphics/type craft, not Data Visualization. A product's own analytics/dashboard interface shown as product imagery goes to UI Design (the product's craft), unless a bespoke visualization was designed for the communication piece itself. Decorative diagrams and pictograms without quantitative mapping go to Illustration/Iconography.

Easily mistaken for 3 other crafts

Every other page suggests neighbours by similarity. This one navigates by difference: each line names the craft this is confused with, and the rule for telling them apart.

• animation motion graphics — An animated chart is legitimately BOTH: Data Visualization names the data-encoding craft, Motion Graphics the animation craft. Tag both when a chart is choreographed in motion; Motion Graphics alone when moving graphics carry no data encoding.
• design ui design — A product's dashboard/analytics interface is UI Design; a bespoke chart designed for the communication piece is Data Visualization.
• Illustration / Iconography — Pictograms and decorative diagrams without quantitative encoding are Illustration/Iconography; Data Visualization requires data mapped to visual form.

At what size it applies

Asset tag when the piece IS the visualization (a chart image, a data-driven explainer film). Moment tag when a chart/statistics beat sits inside a longer piece (a stats sequence in a talk, keynote, or product film).

Pieces that settle the definition

• Image 3: Four line graphs compare lifetime in tournament across differ — designed comparison line graphs — the chart IS the asset
• Studying Scaling Laws for Transformer Architecture … | Shola Oyedele — research talk whose argument is carried by plotted scaling-law charts
• Now in preview: a new personal finance experience in ChatGPT. — reel — product reel where designed finance data graphics carry the story
• Breaking Contrastive Models with the SET Card Game | Legg Yeung | Open — conference talk built around data plots as its evidence

Where to look next

• The whole services tree — the services index.
• Every other vocabulary — the vocabulary index.
• How work gets credited to a craft — the entities chapter.