Calling Out GE's Misleading Data Visualizations

theodp writes "Stephen Few never did suffer data visualization fools gladly. After seeing an oil exec (mis)use data viz to put a positive spin on Gulf Oil Spill cleanup efforts, Few felt compelled to call out BP. And now it's General Electric that's got Few's dander up: 'The series of interactive data visualizations that have appeared on GE's website over the last two years,' writes Few, 'has provided a growing pool of silly examples. They attempt to give the superficial impression that GE cares about data while in fact providing almost useless content. They look fun, but communicate little. As such, they suggest that GE does not in fact care about the information and has little respect for the intelligence and interests of its audience. This is a shame, because the stories contained in these data sets are important.' Concerned about his strong reactions to poorly designed data visualizations, Few asked his neuropsychologist wife whether he might be overreacting. She, too, agrees that GE's natural gas visualizations are maddening, which one might be tempted to dismiss as predictable, although Eyeo Festival presenter Michal Migurski also declares GE's effort 'one terrible, terrible bit of nonsense.'"

Re:Can somebody translate the summary into English

[smittyoneeach]

"never did suffer data visualization fools gladly" == "Few despises bad charts"
"got Few's dander up" == "Few lost patience."

Recommendation: steer clear of the writings of William F. Buckley, Jr. There is a difference between business English and literary English.

Summary v2

[thePowersGang]

Since the summary is so difficult to understand, the jist of the article is that GE's visualisations (I will not grace them with the title "graph") are completely useless in comparing datasets, and are completely confusing to use. This seems to indicate that GE (like many companies) like to fiddle with the presentation of data to push their agenda. (Shock, Horror!) Sadly, this case is an insult to good design principles and statisticians everywhere.

Re:What about the fonts?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am so shaken up by this story, I know I will get all nervous the next time I insert SmartArt charts in Powerpoint - I would be so ashamed to end up publicly flogged on this guy's strongly-worded blog...

"This guy" is one of the most well known authors of the visualization community.

Check out his website [perceptualedge.com]. How many people have a wikipedia page of one of their inventions [wikipedia.org]?

Fault McCandless, not GE

[goodmanj]

I think we should make a distinction between GE, the company hosting the site, and Stephen McCandless, the rather famous data visualization specialist who created the figures. (Here's his website: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/ [informatio...utiful.net] )

The problem is not that the data presented are not useful, or that they're deliberately intended to deceive, which we could fault GE for. As I see it, the problem is that the graphs themselves are crap. They hide useful information, and they use shape and color in ways that seem to provide information but don't, and in general they focus on the aesthetic appeal of the charts at the expense of the data.

When I first encountered McCandless's site a few years ago, I really loved it, but as time goes on it's begun to piss me off. For example, his chart on relative radiation risks:
      http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/radiation-dosage-chart/ [informatio...utiful.net]
Logarithmic charts are always difficult to explain to the public, but the triangular shape of his graph makes it even worse, suggesting a linear increase in dose. He compares it to XKCD's chart [xkcd.com], but his version is inferior in every way. XKCD uses color and shape to provide information; in McCandless's version color and shape have negative information content.

Another example: a graph of time travel plots in film and TV (minus Dr. Who):
        http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/timelines/ [informatio...utiful.net]
The curvy lines look nice, but all anyone can make out of this is a confusing snarl of lines too tangled to parse. Once again, shape has negative information content in this image.

But the king of the bad visualizations is probably another graph McCandless did for GE:
          http://visualization.geblogs.com/visualization/co2/#/flights_London_Tokyo [geblogs.com]
Here, there's no way to intercompare various quantities, and figure out which of two choices is bigger. Shape, color and position are once again meaningless or misleading (things are shown the same size even when they're 8x different), quantities are in incompatible units, and worst of all some of the numbers are flat-out wrong (for instance, fuel usage of aircraft).

But the one thing these all have in common is McCandless, not GE. So let's not fault megacorporations who're trying to communicate a message: let's fault information presentation gurus who care more about appearances than on information presentation.

Re:Stupid we are

[swalve]

Limited Liability doesn't mean what you think it does. It provides a wall of separation between owners/shareholders and employees, but it does nothing to limit the liability of individuals doing bad acts. If someone does something bad, doing so under the guise of an LLC doesn't shield them from legal liability. Merely from financial liability if the actors are acting within the confines of their fiduciary responsibility.