**Abstract:** Visualization designers often rely on examples to explore the space of possible designs, yet we have little insight into how examples shape data visualization design outcomes. While the effects of examples have been studied in other disciplines, such as web design or engineering, the results are not readily applicable to visualization design due to inconsistencies in findings and challenges unique to visualization design. Towards bridging this gap, we conduct an exploratory experiment involving 32 data visualization designers focusing on the influence of five factors (*timing*, *quantity*, *diversity*, data *topic similarity*, and data *schema similarity*) on objectively measurable design outcomes (e.g., *numbers of designs* and *idea transfers*). Our quantitative analysis shows that when examples are introduced after initial brainstorming, designers curate examples with topics less similar to the dataset they are working on and produce more designs with a high variation in visualization components. Also, designers copy more ideas from examples with higher data schema similarities. Our qualitative analysis of participants' thought processes provides insights into why designers incorporate examples into their designs, revealing potential factors that have not been previously investigated. Finally, we discuss how our results inform future work on quantifying designs, improving measures of effectiveness, and supporting example-based visualization design. ---------- # Content This OSF repository contains all the supplementary materials for this paper and is broken down into the following sections: - [Study Design and Materials][1] - [Experiment Interface][2] - [Stimuli Examples][3] - [Participants Demographic Data][4] - [Experiment Artifacts Coding][5] - [Experiment Analysis and Results][6] - [Implemented Designs][8] - [Technical Report: Evaluating Expressiveness of Designs][7] [1]: https://osf.io/sbp2k/wiki/Study%20Design%20and%20Materials/ [2]: https://osf.io/sbp2k/wiki/Interface/ [3]: https://osf.io/sbp2k/wiki/Stimuli%20Examples/ [4]: https://osf.io/sbp2k/wiki/Participants_Data/ [5]: https://osf.io/sbp2k/wiki/Codebook:%20Process%20and%20Procedures/ [6]: https://osf.io/sbp2k/wiki/Experiment%20Results/ [7]: https://osf.io/sbp2k/wiki/Expressiveness%20Technical%20Report/ [8]: https://osf.io/sbp2k/wiki/Implemented%20Designs/