Synonyms
Diagram; Graph; Information graphic; Map
Definition
A chart is an instrument to consolidate and display information.
The term is applied to virtually any graphic that displays information, be it a map used for navigation, a plan for military operations, a musical arrangement, barometric pressure, genealogical data, and even lists of tunes that are most popular at a given time.
Definitions of specialized charts typically include the graphical method on which the chart is based (e.g., bar chart) and or its application area (e.g., CPM chart), but it does not specify design principles. Tufte [2] introduces the notion of “chartjunk” and defines it to be that part of the chart which functions only as decoration, all of which is considered to redundant data ink.
Sometimes charts are reduced to refer to maps and diagrams, excluding graphs and tables.
Key Points
Because charts are used for different purposes, there exist almost as many different types of charts as there are...
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Recommended Reading
Harris RL. Information graphics: a comprehensive illustrated reference. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1999.
Tufte ER. The visual display of quantitative information. Cheshire: Graphics Press; 1983.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
About this entry
Cite this entry
Hinterberger, H. (2018). Chart. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_1375
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_1375
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-8266-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-8265-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceReference Module Computer Science and Engineering