What can we remove from a chart? Our illustration invents one week of library loans: 12 fiction books, 8 science books and 4 history books.
Where the source stops
The data-ink ratio is the share of ink conveying non-redundant data. ScienceUX distinguishes data-ink, repeated data-ink and non-data ink. The source itself warns against erasing needed titles and labels. Non-data elements such as gridlines can still help readers, so the classification is not a blanket deletion rule.
Comparing three states
Our three panels keep the bar heights fixed. First, decoration disappears while categories, period, units and values remain. Next, the explanatory labels disappear too. These two cuts have different consequences.
The same data in three states
Nodavue illustration with invented data
Decoration added
Reading information retained
Context also removed
The bars have the same heights and order in all three panels. The second removes only decoration; the third also hides what was counted, when and in which units. The middle panel retains the information needed for these questions.
Illustration and invented data: Nodavue. The categories, period, unit and values 12, 8 and 4 were chosen for explanation. This does not reproduce ScienceUX’s chart or its data-ink ratio calculation.
V’s view
V’s view. Use the middle panel to identify the most-borrowed category and its count. Could you still answer those questions from the final panel alone?
Limits
Limits: this fictional Nodavue comparison reproduces neither the source’s chart nor its ratio calculation. We read the guide and public code; we did not operate its controls or test readers’ comprehension.