Perspective #FAIL — A Visual Primer
Creativity and interest should never justify misleading graphs
I love the creativity of the bar chart above. Given how often it has been shared on Pinterest, so do many others. It is fun. It is interesting. It is fundamentally flawed! I am not referring to the inconsistency of using a random icon for martini when all the other ‘bars’ are images.
The issue is one of scale and perspective. This graph tells us that beer is ordered roughly 5x more often than gin & tonic. However, what the viewer sees is a ‘bar’ for beer that is more roughly 25x the size of the g&t ‘bar’. While some may argue that the y-axis is clearly labeled, this is just wrong.
A more accurate, equally fun, but admitted less clean option would have been to stack five beers one on top of the other to build this chart.
This happens more that you think
Steve Jobs, rather famously, once used a distorted 3D bar chart to show Apple’s share of the US SmartPhone market. The angle and perspective of the visual made Apple’s 19.5% share look bigger than the 21.2% of Other competitors.
Some would note that pie charts are meant to read using their angles as your means of measurement. Some believe that pie charts are just evil. A few people think Steve Job’s was. Whatever the case, it is probably best to avoid pie charts that have tilted perspectives.
It just feels more fun…
Graphics like this ARE more interesting. They are more fun. They are grossly misleading!
While tilting your pie chart is a bad idea, so is using any shape other than a circle. In the image at left, Lucas films inflated their revenue from toys.
The Millenium Falcon has a circular center. Cutting the pie there may have left this image a little less misleading. They could have put the ship in a circular field. They could have even used the Deathstar, instead they went to the dark side.
And it is nothing new
Darrell Huff’s best-selling statistics book of all-time was written on this very topic. It was originally published in 1954. It is also a quick and fantastic read.
Be aware of perspective in your visualization
Avoid distortion. Understand the pitfalls. Stay creative my friends!
Quintessentially is an article format created by Corsair’s Institute to increase the reader’s comprehension of key concepts in a quick and engaging fashion. For more articles from Perspective, Quintessentially — click here.
For more information on the author visit his profile on LinkedIN — George Earl
