Tag : Manuel Lima

I’ve enjoyed following the debate around Manuel Lima’s information visualisation manifesto, published after he spoke here at Kingly Street last month (see Justin’s post below). The manifesto was sparked by a call from a part of the audience for a critical discourse on data visualisation, so that we could stop just going “Ooohhh” and begin to answer the question ‘What makes a good diagram?’.

Manuel’s response was the succinct and simple yardstick: “form follows revelation”.

He elaborates: 

Form doesn’t follow data. Data is incongruent by nature. Form follows a purpose, and in the case of Information Visualization, Form follows Revelation…. Independently of the subject, the purpose should always be centered on explanation and unveiling, which in turn leads to discovery and insight.