Design Psychology In Data Visualization

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Sam McKay

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Do you know what design psychology is? Thomas Watkins describes it as taking what we know about psychology and applying it to technology. Incorporating our knowledge of sensory perception and cognition into the product in order to ensure that it resonates with users.In this episode of the podcast, Sam McKay speaks with Thomas Watkins about design psychology and how it can be incorporated into techniques and frameworks in Power BI.Thomas Watkins is a thought leader, speaker, and industry practitioner located in Houston TX. He is a life-long learner who has a passion for bringing greater clarity to the world.Thomas has made it his career goal to combine technology with design psychology in order to achieve business success. His expertise lies in assisting his partners in bringing their brilliant ideas to life by simplifying the complexity of their ideas. His work has included interface design for mobile, SaaS system architecture, usability research, and data visualization.
What You’ll Learn From This Episode
  • The basic mentalities when it comes to data visualization.
  • The importance of colors and styles in design psychology perspective.
  • Enhancing data visualization with Grid Patterns
Key Takeaways

“Data visualization can be thought about in terms of signal and noise. Some folks might be familiar with this idea of the signal detection theory. And what that means in this context is that for everything that you see every bit of visual data on a screen is either part of the signal or part of the noise. And of course, what you wanna do is you wanna reduce the noise and you wanna boost the signal. One of the ways to do that is to try to make sure, that things only vary from each other. Things only differ from each other when it maps onto actual meaning. “ – Thomas Watkins

About The Show

The Analytic Mind is your guide to navigating the evolving frontier of data, AI, & intelligent business.

Hosted by Sam McKay, CEO of EnterpriseDNA, this show dives into real-world use cases, technical strategies, and the mental models behind smart decision-making.

Each episode challenges you to move beyond tools to think critically, act strategically, and build with impact.

Whether you're refining your analytics skills or shaping your organization's data vision, this is where insight meets execution.

Stay sharp. Stay ahead. Think like an analytic mind.