Bottom right should be "points lost" imo. For me, the most points lost, as there is nothing more annoying than someone assuming context I don't have.
It seems that this chart assumes:
1. Everyone is a baby that gets their feelings hurt when you imply they might not know something they do in fact know (top right).
2. Everyone loves being alpha nerd and making people feel dumb for not knowing things they know (bottom right)
While both of those are real phenomena, they are pretty dysfunctional. Many people (most people?) enjoy genuine cooperation within a context of mutual trust, learning things from others, and teaching others who want to learn. In that context, checking for knowledge is not a slight, and assuming things "are obvious" and failing to explain them is not a flex.
I don't choose what other people find upsetting and if being a little more cognizant of what is on this chart helps me not inadvertently upset people I don't understand how that is an issue. I think the chart is supposed to help us see some of these statements from other people's perspectives.
> Using the next two charts to illustrate this point
Good on you for using graphs to make your point, but if you don't label your axes or caption your figures I haven't the faintest clue what I'm looking at.
When I see a graph that start's at some random point on the Y axis I assume the person is extremely biased and instantly ignore what they are saying. If I don't see error bars on data points I assume they have zero idea how accurate there information is.
Unfortunately I suspect that this approach is less common among the under educated because trying to create misleading charts is vary common.
Each of the provided examples leverage the fact that we make very quick, snap judgements to form our first (and often only) impression. Adding superfluous detail to the chart causes the casual observer to focus on information that isn't actually relevant to the underlying data.
One thing I found really confusing, though, was that they changed the colors in some of the examples. I had to check the legend of the second example, because I'd thought the order had changed. And double check because the labels of the legends are listed in a different order than what is displayed on the chart itself.
While it is supposed to be an example of confusing charts, I think the author might have conveyed their message more clearly by focusing on one "trick" at a time.
"then you're negligent and misleading people without even knowing it."
Is that their fault? I don't entirely think so. You might be able to claim they should have done the research before choosing that type of graph but the majority of people are not even going to give pie charts a second thought.
If there was an active campaign against pie charts and more discussion I might find fault in that persons ignorance to the matter.
This fellow has been heavily downvoted (at 1:32 EST, anyway), but he has a point. For conveying information, pie charts are definitely not the best. To make an audience happy with your presentation, sometimes it is just best to give them the pies they want. Most laymen are used to them and find them friendlier than more complex charts.
Context is important, this is targeted at journalists. They are usually trying to make a point to casual readers.
For readers with more interest or who are numerate in their day jobs (engineers, finance, or economists), dual axis charts can often be a great choice.
Since we are engineers or founders trying to deal with very complex systems, adding detail and clarity like the Economist or Edward Tufte does is the better way to go.
For what it is worth, couple of things I regret about that post. I was terse, and the tone comes off arrogant. Mainly, my use of "You're" instead of "Your" which I'm usually careful not to mistake.
I'd like to think those are the source of the down votes--as I'd hate to believe we've forgotten the golden rule "customer is king". If their client comes to them and says "I want a pie chart" they should not give them 48 reasons why pie charts are terrible. They should just give them a pie chart.
I'm not suggesting that when ever they have data to convey their first thought should be to use a pie chart. I'm simply reminding them pie charts are a commonality of customer data visualization requests--hate them all they want they still will be using them.
Ask yourself: How useful would the chart be had the numbers not been provided? Why did he have to give the actual figures? Perhaps because it would be hard to gauge areas? Especially for a 3-D pie chart where you are not looking at it head on. The 25% is not much bigger than the 15% (it should be 66% bigger). And with that projection, it's hard to tell.
In fact, the 25% looks like one fourth of the pie chart - the angle it makes is 90 degrees. That's good and as it should be. Looking at Multivariate calculus and Algorithms combined, it really looks like 90 degrees to me too. But it's not 25%.
What value is added by padding blank spaces between all the slices of the chart? Seriously - how does that help at all? Imagine looking at a pie chart head on (i.e. in 2-D), and then seeing they decided to expand the circle and add spaces. Why?
Now imagine presenting this as a simple bar chart. It would be clearer, and the pie chart shows nothing more than what a simple bar chart would. The bar chart would be less confusing.
Agreed. A single chart clearly illustrating the point you are trying to make vs. an interactive do-hickey that I have to twat about with and then infer meaning from, IMHO shows a huge disrespect for time of the audience. After all, its the authors responsibility to communicate their ideas clearly and effectively; no one is entitled to an audience. I wish more documents/spreadsheets/presentations understood this.
It's an important and not trivial lesson. Your language is wrong for us, the readers, and we are far more likely to reject your site without a real attempt to engage. A chart is a chart, a table is a table.
I was amongst many it seems who were discombobulated when we arrived at the site. I was wondering whether the chart was in flash or something had not loaded. And I felt very let down and negative about the table, as I was expecting some sort of x/y bubble chart, where the bubbles showed the number of users and the x/y axes showing something like usability and feature-set. Now that or similar would be a chart worth looking at.
It seems that this chart assumes:
1. Everyone is a baby that gets their feelings hurt when you imply they might not know something they do in fact know (top right).
2. Everyone loves being alpha nerd and making people feel dumb for not knowing things they know (bottom right)
While both of those are real phenomena, they are pretty dysfunctional. Many people (most people?) enjoy genuine cooperation within a context of mutual trust, learning things from others, and teaching others who want to learn. In that context, checking for knowledge is not a slight, and assuming things "are obvious" and failing to explain them is not a flex.
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