Re:Why We Hate Infographics
by jimt67 on Tuesday September 24, 2013 @08:26AM
(#6437428)
Given the vast amount of junky infographics, I generally agree with their philosophy. They do, however, seem to ignore some of the research on the value of chartjunk. Like this paper, which won a best paper award at CHI '10: http://hci.usask.ca/publications/view.php?id=173
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And then there's this, about that paper: http://junkcharts.typepad.com/junk_charts/2010/05/8-red-flag...
Edit: And this http://junkcharts.typepad.com/numbersruleyourworld/2010/05/m...
There are other studies (e.g., http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=6327... )
A Google Scholar search will turn up others...the HCI literature seems to prefer the term visual embellishments to chartjunk.
I'm inclined to believe their findings, in the same way that I'd agree putting a picture of Miley Cyrus as the lead art for a story about unemployment rates would make you notice and remember that one story more than other unemployment rate stories.
Quick question on the paper's methodology...is 20 a big enough sample size?
It may or it may not be...see: http://www.uvm.edu/~bbeckage/Teaching/DataAnalysis/AssignedP...