1. Know your data before you visualize it. Knowing your data allows you to identify errors or inconsistencies within your data.
2. Know your audience. This means not just knowing for whom you are creating a visualization but also why you are creating one.
3. Data visualization can be used to enhance data exploration and analysis rather than just being the final result of a project. Visualizing your data can be an accessible way to present your findings at the conclusion of a research project. However, preliminary visualizations can also help you better understand trends within the data and explore varying hypotheses.
4. Visualizations can lie or be misleading. Visualizations do not always tell the whole story.