October 04, 2003

Infographics

Posted by Eszter

Those who like to learn about and ponder world affairs through the graphical representation of data will enjoy these posters presented by the International Networks Archive at Princeton.

Posted on October 4, 2003 10:55 PM UTC
Comments

Eeek addictive. Well, there goes my Sunday . . . .

Posted by billyblue · October 5, 2003 02:12 PM

I hate these sort of “info” graphics. They make a pretty picture, but they do an absolutely terrible job of presenting information. For example, to show the increase in the number of Starbucks they draw cylinders with heights proportional to the number. Trouble is, the width and depth are also proportional to the number. That means that if the number of outlets doubles, the cylinders grow in volume by a factor of eight. This makes the growth look much much more dramatic than it really is.

The other graphs have similar problems. The authors should have read Darrel Huff’s “How toLie with Statistics”

Posted by Tim Lambert · October 6, 2003 02:32 AM

Excellent. Seven more perfect examples of ChartJunk for the next Edward Tufte book…

Posted by Anonymous Coward · October 6, 2003 06:58 AM

Agreed. These are all so overloaded with stylistic junk that they actually interfere with one’s understanding of the issues and arguably trivalize very important subjects.

Posted by nobody · October 6, 2003 06:55 PM

They seem pretty clear to me, other than the use of absolute rather than per capita on some of the graphs. I’m looking over Tufte Visual Explanations right now. He doesn’t seem to mind stylistic junk if it’s clear. But I suppose I’m less of a minimalist than he is.

Posted by Shai · October 7, 2003 11:36 AM
Followups

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.