I feel like the emphasis on preattentive processing and visual cognition in data visualization, while well-meaning, gets to the point where we coddle readers and don& #39;t expect them to, you know, learn how to read things.

Alphabets, code, spoken language & other forms of communication aren& #39;t instinctual, they& #39;re learned. It& #39;s okay to, you know, tell someone to learn how to read an axis (whether it& #39;s a non-zero baseline or logarithmic or otherwise). Maybe they& #39;ll even be better for it!

Instead, many of our dataviz rules are based on this idea that someone is going to see your chart and read it like they& #39;re responding to a predator in a jungle.

I get the well-intentioned reason for this, but it& #39;s ultimately a mark& #39;s game. You& #39;re never going to make the perfect chart that everyone gets right off the bat & there& #39;s no confusion about unless it& #39;s so simple that it probably doesn& #39;t even need to be a chart in the first place.