Fun with Stats: Double Your Displeasure
Posted on:: November 15th, 2003
In an otherwise balanced article on Linux’s challenge to Windows, InformationWeek runs the following two charts:
Notice, however, that the Windows chart scales horizontally up to 80 while the Linux chart only manages to get its concerns up to 40.
Categories: Uncategorized dw
This is classic bad information design. The visual strongly suggests the degree of concern is equal, and that’s what a lot of people will take away.
SIGH.
Has no one read Tufte?
Statistical FUD
Ooh… graphs… and yet, how many people pay attention to the labels? Joho the Blog: Fun with Stats: Double Your Displeasure Fear, uncertainty and doubt… all rolled into a picture. Quaint. I guess they don’t think people are smart enough…
Nice eyes on that one. Would this be called deceptive media?
It shows how important it is to read the fine print!
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Deceptive charts
The following charts on Linux’s challenge to Windows are nice examples of bad information design. They would have fit perfectly into the Doumont presentation. Try to find the mistake yourself, before reading the explanation below the charts. link sugge…
Bad graphs?
From IDblog: You may want to file this one away as an example of how graphs can mislead. Dave Weinberger notes that in “an otherwise balanced article on Linux’s challenge to Windows,” InfoWeek illustrates its points with some question…