Here is a table from the US Environmental Protection Agency from a few years ago. What are the problems with this table?
Source Sector | Total Emissions |
---|---|
Electricity Generation | 652,314 |
Fires | 14,520,530 |
Fossil Fuel Combustion | 1,499,367 |
Industrial Processes | 2,414,055 |
Miscellaneous | 33,786 |
Non Road Equipment | 22,414,896 |
On Road Vehicles | 62,957,908 |
Residential Wood Combustion | 2,704,197 |
Road Dust | 0 |
Solvent Use | 3,294 |
Waste Disposal | 2,018,496 |
A better version of the table (font, background, alignment):
Source Sector | Total Emissions |
---|---|
Electricity Generation | 652,314 |
Fires | 14,520,530 |
Fossil Fuel Combustion | 1,499,367 |
Industrial Processes | 2,414,055 |
Miscellaneous | 33,786 |
Non Road Equipment | 22,414,896 |
On Road Vehicles | 62,957,908 |
Residential Wood Combustion | 2,704,197 |
Road Dust | 0 |
Solvent Use | 3,294 |
Waste Disposal | 2,018,496 |
Here is a sample table with two values: Yes/No.
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
Yes |
A better version would be:
Yes |
- |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
- |
- |
- |
Yes |
- |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
- |
- |
- |
- |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
- |
- |
Yes |
Using color to highlight the pattern (one color):
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
Yes |
This is the bar charts of the population of the USA over the last 8 years. The left chart shows how 3D hurts the visualization. The right chart is a less fancy but much more effective in 2D.
Here is an example how visualization lies: from Time Magazine (4/9/79) via Tufte. Please avoid this.
These examples are charts from a recent version of Excel. 3D distorts the view making it more difficult (less accurate as well) to read the visualization.
A 2D version is much better. Picking up the right colors is also helpful: we could use colors to relate consoles. For example, Playstation 2 and Playstation 3 are both in (darker and lighter) blue.
Here is another bad example from Fox news: