The Graphical Interface
by Sharon Kardia

From SPSS
Iteration 7.0 for this stand-alone graphics package belongs to a larger family of products marketed under the name of SYSTAT, and is sold by SPSS.

Of all the packages reviewed, Sygraph has the most unique and imaginative graphics. It was an exciting package to review. However, it is unfortunately encased in a hybrid menu/programming-style package that makes it awkward at times to operate, and the ability to customize the graphs afterwards is limited. It is not as slick as its sister, SigmaPlot.

UNIQUE GRAPHICS FEATURES: One thing that sets Sygraph apart from all the rest is its attention to graphical display of data as a cognitive science. Sygraph's introductory chapter gives a good description of the interplay between graphic design and perception of information that every person who uses graphics should read. Sygraph also gives good tips for how to maximize perceptual information through better graphic design. It has an abundance of unique graphical displays, to which words do not do justice, including ring plots (also called attention maps), Voronoi tesselation of two-dimensional data, minimum spanning trees, parallel plots, Fourier blob plots, convex hull plots, as well as the use of pyramids instead of boxes for box plots, to name a few. Sygraph also has the most unique set of univariate descriptive plots, for example, the jitter plot, stripe plot and fuzzy plots. Moreover, there is an unparalleled set of maps for graphing spatially relevant data.

STRENGTHS: Sygraph has other wonderful graphical features, such as bubble plots, influence plots, sophisticated iconic plots and good quality-control plots.

WEAKNESSES: As mentioned earlier, these wonderful graphical procedures are encased in a hybrid-menu/programming-style package, which can be difficult to operate. Sygraph also has only limited abilities to customize the graphs afterwards. Although time did not allow for me to investigate the option of transferring these graphs into its sibling SigmaPlot, these graphs may be transformable into high-quality graphics with another package.

LIKELY USERS: Sygraph is for anyone that is interested in cutting-edge graphical ideas. It's a must buy for anyone who is looking for imaginative ways of presenting data or for understanding the importance of good graphical design.

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