Comments on: Caffeine Data Visualization http://supportanalytics.com/blog/2007/11/caffeine-data-visualization/ Sat, 30 Apr 2011 08:44:13 -0400 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 By: DSA http://supportanalytics.com/blog/2007/11/caffeine-data-visualization/comment-page-1/#comment-1723 DSA Tue, 04 Dec 2007 01:35:23 +0000 http://supportanalytics.com/blog/2007/11/caffeine-data-visualization/#comment-1723 Jonathan – I definitely agree with you on this one! I have seen many uses of images/graphics to depict data and often they fail miserably (some examples are: houses to show new home starts or sales, cars to show car sales, etc.). One of the main reasons they fail is because they are using area or volume to show one-dimension data. Edward Tufte devotes part of chapter two in The Visual Display of Quantitative Information to the idea of graphical integrity, which touches upon this subject. Jonathan – I definitely agree with you on this one! I have seen many uses of images/graphics to depict data and often they fail miserably (some examples are: houses to show new home starts or sales, cars to show car sales, etc.).

One of the main reasons they fail is because they are using area or volume to show one-dimension data. Edward Tufte devotes part of chapter two in The Visual Display of Quantitative Information to the idea of graphical integrity, which touches upon this subject.

]]> By: Jonathan O'Keeffe http://supportanalytics.com/blog/2007/11/caffeine-data-visualization/comment-page-1/#comment-1721 Jonathan O'Keeffe Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:14:31 +0000 http://supportanalytics.com/blog/2007/11/caffeine-data-visualization/#comment-1721 It's inherently a little bit misleading to use photographic representations of objects of different sizes in a context like this. There's a strong natural inclination to assume that the images that appear larger are designed that way to indicate higher caffeine content. So at first glance, or certainly in the thumbnail versions of the images, the viewer is inclined to think that the Propel, Coca-Cola Blak, and Pepsi Max products are the ones with the highest caffeine contents. You have to look a little more carefully to realize that the photos are just photos, without any data content, and that the only actual data content is contained in the bars superimposed on the photos. It’s inherently a little bit misleading to use photographic representations of objects of different sizes in a context like this. There’s a strong natural inclination to assume that the images that appear larger are designed that way to indicate higher caffeine content. So at first glance, or certainly in the thumbnail versions of the images, the viewer is inclined to think that the Propel, Coca-Cola Blak, and Pepsi Max products are the ones with the highest caffeine contents. You have to look a little more carefully to realize that the photos are just photos, without any data content, and that the only actual data content is contained in the bars superimposed on the photos.

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