[burch45]

Yes. This is exactly the sort of information you’ll find in Bill Cleveland’s books.l (referenced at the start of the article then somewhat dismissed later). Bill Cleveland did all these sorts of studies with actual users about which visualizations are most accurate and quickest to parse. He did tons of work at IBM studying this stuff because they needed to use effective visualizations to convey information to decision makers. Unfortunately most of the visualization discourse has been taken over by people like Tufte who focus on style rather than measurable substance.

[thom]

Yes and I’m not saying you’re wrong to dismiss it - all that work has been passed down as immutable, static laws that people regurgitate to say some things are good and some are bad. The fact is, most viz exists to support specific tasks or decisions and you should always test those directly yourself.