Infoviz fail

[Image from "Keventhepang" on Twitter; via Wonkette.]

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I want to be Jorge Camoes when I grow up.

Portuguese infoviz enthusiast Jorge Camoes has spent the last year and a half writing informed, insightful blog posts on the field, complete with examples and citations. To his credit, he approaches everything -- even the revered work of Edward Tufte and Stephen Few -- with loving skepticism. I'm gratified, too, that he seems to agree with me on one central point: Snazzy tools alone don't get you good data visualization. It all comes down to putting serious thought into the project before you plot the first data point. In future posts we'll discuss more of Jorge's ideas. Bem feito, o Sr. Camoes!
Read more

Hype and backlash:
visualizing pop culture trends

Image
Back in 2005, the astute pop-culture chronicler Adam Sternbergh pointed out that a person's opinion of any given entertainment product depends largely on how long they've been aware of it — that is, where the product sits on the sine-wave timeline of public expectations (aka buzz). His findings, in chart form: "Welcome to the undulating curve of shifting expectations—the Heisenbergian principle by which hype determines how much you enjoy a given pop-culture phenomenon. The first-wave audience is pleasantly surprised, but the second-wavers feel let down; then the third wave finds it’s not as bad as they’ve heard—and they’re all watching the exact same show." Almost five years later, this pattern describes just about all our collective experiences. Sports fans, how much sweeter was it to watch the New Orleans Saints come out of nowhere to win the NFC championship than to have seen the Minnesota Vikings do it for the umpteenth time? As for politics, consider the poll...
Read more

Hans Rosling and Gapminder

Image
As part of his larger mission of promoting "fact-based" public health policy, Swedish physician Hans Rosling founded Gapminder.org , which aims to make world health data available and understandable to everyone. Back in 2006, Rosling gave a well-received TED presentation on the principles of Gapminder, showing, among other things, relative historical changes in life expectancy and GDP. ( He spoke again in 2007. ) Rosling acknowledges that there are some small flaws and inconsistencies with data derived from all these different sources, but believes that the comparative results are far more significant. Check out the vast difference between Mauritius and Congo in income per person and life expectancy (shown on the Gapminder site and in the '06 presentation); consequently, says Rosling, using the term "sub-Saharan Africa" to describe both of these countries is vague to the point of uselessness. His point: The more easily data and details can be visualized and co...
Read more