<p>Part of statistics is</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The art of telling a story with [numerical] data.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.worldofstatistics.org/wos/pdfs/WOSFlyer.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">The World of Statistics</a>.</p>
<p>The techniques and principles of telling such stories are primarily graphical.  Those who use two-dimensional graphics to represent and communicate quantitative data usually identify themselves as <em>cartographers.</em>  Statisticians, although we might not aspire to be cartographers, must be intelligent, well-informed users of cartographic methods.</p>
<p>The cartography literature includes experimental results and recommendations concerning elements outside the immediate plot area.  This includes titles, axis labels, comments, legends, footnotes, captions, and anything else that is integrated with the graphic and is important for interpreting it.  For example, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borden_Dent" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Borden Dent</a> (<em>Cartography,</em> Fifth Edition) wrote</p>
<blockquote>
<p>... titles, legends, and other explanatory information, like any other graphic elements, need to fit into the whole plan for the [graphic].</p>
</blockquote>
<p>(Dent, Chapter 14.)</p>
<p>He proceeds to recommend a gradation of type sizes for various such elements.  Then he turns to considerations of spacing of titles and (rather vaguely) to the placement of the elements in the overall graphic.  It's all rather obvious when you read it--but then when you examine many statistical graphics, especially those produced only by statisticians, it becomes apparent that these obvious principles are not frequently observed.  (Many people asking questions on CV post graphics that are so deficient in this regard that they are unreadable.)</p>
<p>Unlike moderator @Tim, whose opinions I respect, I do not construe this site to have a &quot;pretty narrow scope,&quot; but view it more expansively as covering methods, principles, procedures, and concepts needed for thinking about and applying statistics.  In this context the question we are discussing is <em>not</em> a case of the &quot;boat programming&quot; meme (wherein the involvement of statistics is only incidental to the question, and trivially so).</p>
<p>After reviewing Dent (and a few other cartographic classics) I felt that reopening the question would be appropriate and did so. Please do not read any criticism of the original closure into this action, though: the subject matter clearly is on the edge of what most of us would consider on topic on CV.  That, and the apparent triviality of the question, were sufficient justification for the initial closure decision.</p>
