You are definitely right in that we need to think about how it will look to another human being.
If you are interested in pursuing this idea further, Don Norman has written a number of books about design in general. These are not about graphic design but just design thinking. The Psychology of Everyday Things is a classic and Emotional Design builds on the work of people like Antonio Damasio with regard to the role of emotion in cognition. Norman has another book called The Design of Everyday Things which I have not read but I imagine is a great read as well.
All of these works emphasize the role of design in helping humans accomplish their goals. Some practitioners of data analytics view the output of prose, charts, tables and graphs as the final product. In most cases however the final product of a data analytics effort is a decision. That decision might be to do more research, to buy one company versus another or propose a new policy to Congress. Regardless of the nature of the decision, how well you design the output will have an impact on the quality of the decision made.
You are definitely right in that we need to think about how it will look to another human being.
If you are interested in pursuing this idea further, Don Norman has written a number of books about design in general. These are not about graphic design but just design thinking. The Psychology of Everyday Things is a classic and Emotional Design builds on the work of people like Antonio Damasio with regard to the role of emotion in cognition. Norman has another book called The Design of Everyday Things which I have not read but I imagine is a great read as well.
All of these works emphasize the role of design in helping humans accomplish their goals. Some practitioners of data analytics view the output of prose, charts, tables and graphs as the final product. In most cases however the final product of a data analytics effort is a decision. That decision might be to do more research, to buy one company versus another or propose a new policy to Congress. Regardless of the nature of the decision, how well you design the output will have an impact on the quality of the decision made.
I’ve read The Design of Everyday Things. You don’t need to read The Psychology of..., as it’s the same book, renamed for marketing reasons.