(This article was originally published at Junk Charts, and syndicated at StatsBlogs.)
Infographics do not have to be "data ornaments" (link). Once in a blue moon, someone finds the right balance of pictures and data. Here is a nice example from the Wall Street Journal, via ThumbsUpViz.
Link to the image
What makes this work is that the picture of the running back serves a purpose here, in organizing the data. Contrast this to the airplane from Consumer Reports (link), which did a poor job of providing structure. An alternative of using a bar chart is clearly inferior and much less engaging.
***
I went ahead and experimented with it:
I fixed the self-sufficiency issue, always present when using bubble charts. In this case, I don't think it matters whether the readers know the exact number of injuries so I removed all of the data from the chart.
Here are three temptations that I did not implement:
- Not include the legend
- Not include the text labels, which are rendered redundant by the brilliant idea of using the running guy Hide the bar charts behind a mouseover effect.
Please comment on the article here: Junk Charts
