Teaching:TUW - UE InfoVis WS 2008/09 - Gruppe 07 - Aufgabe 2
Original Table
Critics
- There is no title and subtitle defined for the table.
- The border around the table is not needed since there is plenty of space around it. Better to use white space, because it is the preferred means for arranging data into columns and rows. The subtle use of blank space to group data into columns and rows is the least visible means available. [Stephen Few, 2004]
- The percent sign is missing for every percentage value.
- Numbers are not consistent, because they have a different amount of digits after the decimal point and other numbers are expressed in an exponential form. Furthermore the numbers in the table should be reformatted to incorporate commas to the left of every three whole-number digits. This promotes effective communication of the data by also allowing people with bad short-term memory to enjoy the table. [Stephen Few, 2004]
- Numbers should be aligned to the right, because this makes them easier to read. Text not holding numbers such as the columns "Analyte" and "Units" should be aligned to the left.
- Rows and columns are to close togehter which makes reading the data very hard.
- Grid makes the data harder to read when scaning throug the colums and rows because it breaks up the data.
- Tk-50-HTK is a master category for all the other categories but it is not shown as a master category.
- microg is not a very suitable unit. µg would be better.
Changed Table
Changes
- Removed the border and grid and used Whitespaces to seperate the data. Furthermore we added some horizontal and vertical whitespace for a better reading and understanding of the data. Now it is easy you to track across the rows and the columns.
- We removed the Unit Column because every data in the table is in the same unit. We added a note in the footer to make sure, that you still know what units are used.
Resources
- [Stephen Few, 2004] Stephen Few, Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten, Analytics Press, 2004, Chapter 8 - Table Design