A chart is not a neutral container. It is a sequence of choices, each of which either preserves the data's integrity or degrades it.
What you're looking at
Five boxes connected by labeled arrows that name the relationship between stages. The path runs left-to-right across the top (raw data → aggregation → scale), then drops down through decoration to the final published chart. A feedback loop in dashed blue returns from the published chart back to raw data, labeled with what the audience never sees. Two colors: black for structural choices, red for degradation.
Why I drew it this way
The horizontal flow establishes the sequence — each stage depends on the prior. The vertical drop to "chartjunk" is deliberate: decoration is applied after the quantitative choices are made, which means it can only obscure, never clarify. I considered a linear chain, but the two-tier layout makes visible that decoration and final output are consequences, not peers, of the data transformations above them. The dashed feedback loop is the gap: the viewer of the published chart has no access to the raw data, so they cannot audit the summarization or framing choices that preceded what they see.
What it argues
Most discussions of chart quality focus on the final object — the colors, the fonts, the presence or absence of grid lines. This diagram argues that the final chart is the least important stage to critique, because by then the damage is done. The real failures happen at aggregation (did you bin the data honestly?) and scale (did you choose axis bounds that preserve the variability?). Chartjunk is a visible sin, but it's usually decorating an already-broken chart. The position: audit the chain, not the output.
What I left out
I left out the designer's intent. There is no box for "goal" or "message" feeding into these stages, because intent does not excuse method. A chart made with good intentions but bad aggregation is still a bad chart. The absence of a motivation node argues that we judge charts by their structure, not their author's stated purpose.