Visualizing Data Is an Art – We Should Treat It Like One

I think the article addresses your point: "The fact that some disciplines of an art form demand more precision doesn't mean the whole field shares those demands. It would be like saying best practices for photorealism should be applied to abstract expressionism, or how we approach technical writing should be the same as how we approach poetry."

It wouldn't make sense to say "I've grown out of being impressed by complex prose" - you're welcome to enjoy Faulker or not, but he simply didn't have the same goals as the authors of the Stripe documentation, and judging both pieces of writing by the same standard is basically pointless (except, perhaps, as an art project of its own).

I'd even apply this to coding itself. Day to day, I think everybody around me should be writing Blub, grug-brain code, but I'm happy there are people trying creative, weird languages and mind-bending ideas elsewhere and I'm curious what they find out.

I'd call what you describe as impressive, art.

Flashy trashy is just crap. Some might call it art but then again everything is art these days.

Author of the article here! Yes you're completely right. I think they also have other underrated properties, like they fit neatly in a square which can be helpful for laying out a dashboard. And for some reason, in my experience, people just like them.

But when done poorly, they can be a mess. Like any other chart.

> Art is about self-expression, evoking emotions, and open interpretation

Art is about these things, but is also about many other things. And art can be clear in its intentions, leaving little to interpret.

What is the purpose of data visualization? Often to evoke emotions and to help someone not familiar with the data understand how to interpret it.

The people who accomplish this most effectively understand that the point isn't just to force data points into a visual form. If it were so simple, more people would be good at it (they aren't).

> Clearly DataViz is Design

I don't understand this sentence. I'm not trying to be difficult, but if DataViz is Design, what is Design?

I don't see art and design as mutually exclusive. I also don't think that data viz is exclusively about functionality.

Take a project like this: https://www.dear-data.com/theproject... this is clearly data visualization and, to me, quite evocative. These visualizations aren't designed for clarity and they don't need to be, that wasn't the goal.

Art as in craft/field! "State of the Art" is a phrase that refers to what is possible within a domain. There is also the implication that it takes judgement, maybe even an artistic sensibility. This is in opposition to a strain of thought within data viz from the Business Intelligence/Analytics side of the field that has succumbed to the MBA/Process gospel that preaches Repeatable Process and the siren song of good data visualization without using your brain!

Is Design an Art?

data Viz for it's own sake might be design - in real applications, you always have a story you're trying to tell - and it doesn't go away just because you're not consciously aware of it.

Be the change you wish to see in the world!

Thank you! Yeah, I hear you on the framing. I don't have a formal education on data viz myself (I guess not many people do?), but I've gotten into the world over the last few years. A lot of the literature I've seen has come across as dogmatic to me, which is what sparked this article. That's great to hear that your experience is more aligned with this way of thinking.

And thanks for the nice words about the animations! Glad to hear that work doesn't go unappreciated haha