5 Gestalt Principles for BI Engineers and Data Analysts
Make your Vizzes instantaneously perceptive!
Putting the Beauty in Data
Have you ever been ravished by data visualizations on Tableau Public that look like only magic could be in play to display so much data in such a pleasing way? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, take a look at this. Or any of these.
Most of those vizzes are a result of exploiting how humans perceive visual landscapes (parts of a whole). The principles in play here are called the Gestalt principles. Gestalt in German means “Pattern” or “Configuration.” The Gestalt principles are used in visual design as guidelines in order to effectively visualise data, thereby making data easier to consume.
There are numerous Gestalt principles, but I will be demonstrating the six most common ones, using Tableau’s most frequently used ‘Sample Superstore’ dataset. Though these principles are being explained individually, often more than one Gestalt principle is used in a single visualisation. However, a single principle tends to dominate.
