I spend a lot of time in my workshops and in my new book discussing preattentive attributes. These are elements like size, color, and position on page that, when used sparingly, can direct your audience's attention to where you want them to pay it when communicating with data. There is a test I like to employ when it comes to determining whether preattentive attributes are being used effectively: the "where are your eyes drawn?" test. In this post, I discuss this test, how to do it, and we look at a number of images using it and discussing the implications for data visualization.

When visualizing survey data, it's always seemed to me like showing where you're at is only part of the picture. There is important context that comes with where you could be.  In this post, I explore this idea in the context of a specific example.