Ruthlessly Helpful

Since a picture paints a thousand words, it makes sense that people communicate better with charts, graphs, and other visualization methods. The Periodic Table of Elements is a classic example of a great way to visualize atoms, their characteristics, and structural similarities. Anyone who has taken chemistry knows the significance of the diagram.

What are all your visualization options?

The site visual-literacy.org offers a compendium of visualization methods. One page shows a “periodic table” metaphor to help you access and sort out different visualization methods: A Periodic Table of Visualization

Some key things to note about the Periodic Table of Visualization Methods.

• Hover over an element in the table and an example diagram is shown.
• All the elements fall into categories, such as, data, strategy, and metaphor.
• Some elements help to visualize processes while others visualize structure.

If you’re looking to present information, take some time to explore visual-literacy.org. There are a lot of great ideas, well illustrated on that site.