Data Abstraction to Visualization

As mentioned earlier, knowledge about the types of the attributes can provide guidance in selecting graphical encoding strategies.

Some examples:

• Line chart is inappropriate for unordered attributes i.e. categorical attributes. This is mainly because categorical attributes can be reordered/sorted arbitrarily, thereby changing the line pattern. Instead, we must use bar chart for categorical attributes.

• Spatial attributes can be visualized using spatial representations like maps.

• Divergent quantitative attributes can be represented using heat maps (divergent color scales).