This week’s reading, Chapter 7: “Introduction to Data Displays,” begins with a brief overview of data displays and how they are used. The chapter highlights three main reasons why data displays are useful rhetorical tools. First, readers often find visual representations more appealing and attention-grabbing than abstract numbers. Next, data displays have the ability to make complex information much more accessible and understandable to readers than text format. Finally, tables and other data displays are effective at providing a “top-down perspective” through which we may compare trends and relationships among data.

The chapter goes on to discuss the freedom and confusion of creating data displays. There are so many ways to adjust graphs and tables to portray certain features of a body of information, but the variety of spatial, graphic and textual design elements can also become overwhelming.  The authors suggest using the rhetorical situation to guide the process of designing a data display that is clear and understandable. They describe the scenario of a nonprofit worker whose task is to present data for a monthly meeting. Ed must organize the ages of members into a display that demonstrates trends in membership development. The chapter analyzes the considerations Ed must make before creating an effective graph: audience, purpose, and context. Then, he must employ his sense of creativity to determine which kind of graph will most effectively display the information. Through his revision process, he is able to work out the kinks in his design to make it more clear, credible, concise and precise. Next, through visually editing his line graph, Ed increases its emphasis, clarity, conciseness, tone and ethos. His final touches include adding color to make the graph more visually appealing.

The chapter continues by explaining the lexicons of visual language that are often used by computer graphing programs and dividing them into three categories: textual, spatial and graphic. Textual elements of a graph play a subordinate yet critical role, as supportive description of the data. Spatial elements of a data display such as size, shape and orientation often dictate how effectively the information is communicated. This section describes the positive and negative features of several data display options, from the simple pie chart to the more complex Gantt charts. The third category, graphic elements, encompasses a wide variety of a display’s features. These features are divided as those that represent the data (such as a bar on a bar graph) and those that help define it (such as a gridline).

The reading encourages us to assess the rhetorical situation to combine all of the aforementioned elements into an illustrative, clear and useful data display. Defining an audience, purpose and use for the display is crucial to developing it. Then, the authors discuss more deeply the importance of arrangement, emphasis, clarity, conciseness, tone, and ethos. Using these cognate strategies interdependently is also paramount to designing an effective data display.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAAYvm6ZlY 

Applying this reading to real life situations, the advertising industry regularly faces the sometimes-intimidating task of creating visual displays of their products to appeal to consumers. Companies are always creating and improving products, and communicating this to the public is crucial to increasing sales and maintaining their reputation as successful manufacturers. Advertisements play a huge role in how a company or its products are portrayed to buyers, and a questionable advertisement can easily injure the face of a brand or manufacturer. Take, for instance, the damage Carl’s, Jr. had to contend with after airing their provocative and highly controversial commercial featuring a scantily-clad Paris Hilton washing a car and eating one of their hamburgers. According to David Kiley’s article on businessweek.com, the racy commercial prompted outcries from organizations like the Parents Television Council,  and earned the disapproval of would-be customers across the country.

At the same time, Carl’s Jr.’s advertising strategy proved effective in some respects, by appealing to another audience and earning publicity for the fast food joint. While children and parents may have been upset by the commercial, young people and men were two groups of viewers who did not object to the ad. After the commercial was first aired, the company’s website was overwhelmed with traffic, and their burger sales temporarily skyrocketed.

It turns out Carl’s Jr. advertisers were quite successful visual designers. They took into account their targeted audience, their purpose in creating the commercial, and how viewers would use it, and the rhetorical situation paid off.