Cleveland and McGill: graphical perception

Type: experimental. Reviewed: 2026-09-13.

Source

William S. Cleveland and Robert McGill. 1984. Graphical Perception: Theory, Experimentation, and Application to the Development of Graphical Methods. Journal of the American Statistical Association 79(387), 531–554.

Original / authoritative source · Full paper

Scope

Original paper; sections 4.3–4.5, especially p. 543 and Figure 16.

Limitations

Two proportion-judgment experiments inform quantitative encoding selection. The guide reports the log-error confidence interval, not a general dashboard effect. Paper stimuli and controlled comparisons do not establish performance on interactive pricing tasks.