Comments on: Make Your Data Pop

By: kevinrussellersel

kevinrussellersel — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:25:16 +0000

All employees are treated as if they are a crucial component of the company's success. Our owner and managers are very skilled at fidelity 401k making employees feel valued, respected, and appreciated. Despite long hours and challenging work, job satisfaction is very high because of this approach.

By: annktrembley

annktrembley — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 09:39:29 +0000

That’s a given, logically. Being “rich” is a state of positive wealth. You’re not less rich if you’re more wealthy. It’s just impossible. It’s a conclusion that couldn’t be honestly debated even by the most semantically-obsessed individuals. Here’s the key: If you’re going to draw conclusions from the raw data, make sure you’re on solid ground. If the fidelity 401k data and conclusions were presented in a meeting or conference, provide the raw data in the handouts. Not only does it free the presentation from slides that make the audience work too hard to decipher, but it gives you a certain amount of transparency that shows you didn’t monkey with the data to force it into the conclusion that you desired.

By: Making Your Data Pop | Strategic IT Planning Blog

Making Your Data Pop | Strategic IT Planning Blog — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:30:19 +0000

[...] suggest you take a look at this post, where he explains the concept better than I ever could. Share and [...]

By: WVMikeP

WVMikeP — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:08:28 +0000

As you are I'm sure aware, I was working with the video that I linked to, which did not break it down any further. I inserted "other" because it was the only way to describe accurately that missing data from the slides they had on screen. What they showed didn't add up to 100%, but there had to be some kind of answer. I wasn't going to assume it was "don't know," "did not answer," etc. "Other" was the safest bet with regards to accuracy.

Regarding the pie vs. bar, I agree pie charts can be problematic. They are quite often overused. However, this is one case where I think it makes sense. Pie charts are the only ones that accurately display percentages with relation to the whole (100%). Bar charts are great at comparing the size of two data points, for sure.

Think about this scenario: Let's assume for a moment there are 2 data points: 25% and 75%. Your data point of interest is the one that is 25%. Now, with the numbers alone or with a bar chart, they make the value seem fairly small. It is, when compared to 75%. If they were people, they are people in the minority in some fashion. If it's an election result, it's a landslide of epic proportions. However, if your point is along the lines of 1 out of 4 people... then the visual significance of that 25% pie slice helps convey your message. Why? Well, even though it's only 25%, a pie slice that is 1/4 the whole looks fairly big. One that someone should stand up and take notice of.

A bar chart can make the minority look insignificant while the pie chart gives the minority some significance. I've seen someone use a bar chart in my 9-to-5 to make it seem like nobody's using Macs when visiting our web site. Put that same data in a pie chart and suddenly, that 1/20 or 5% seems big enough to notice and worthy of consideration.

By: Best Public Speaking Tips and Techniques [2009-03-14]

Best Public Speaking Tips and Techniques [2009-03-14] — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 03:58:17 +0000

[...] Pulsifer shows how the same data can lead to many slides — some effective and others not so effective. If you [...]

By: Richard I. Garber

Richard I. Garber — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:00:01 +0000

Mike:

Using a pie chart on percentages that don’t really add to 100% is not good either.

If you go into Google and look up the news story at: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,505174,00.html
you can find a link to the poll data at the end: http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/030509_Poll...

When you wade through that file you eventually will find those numbers are the answer to question #28, and the results in $ are as follows:

Less than 50,000 – 3%
51,000 to 75,000 – 6%
76,000 to 100,000 – 9%
101,000 to 150,000 – 9%
151,000 to 250,000 – 13%
251,000 to 500,000 – 20%
501,000 to 1,000,000 – 13%
Over 1,000,000 – 12%
Don’t know – 15%

Note there is no “other”. 15% of the people said they just plain don’t know.

A cumulative list (up to this number) would go as follows:
50,000 – 3%
75,000 – 9%
100,000 – 18%
150,000 – 27%
250,000 – 40%
500,000 – 60%
1,000,000 – 72%
More than 1,000,000 - 85%
(and 15% just don’t know)

To me it makes more sense to plot the cumulative percent in a horizontal bar chart.

I’ve said before in my blog that “Pie charts do not speak clearly; they just mumble”:
http://joyfulpublicspeaking.blogspot.com/2008/0...
In that post I referred to Professor Stephen Few’s detailed article, “Save the pies for dessert”:
http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/visual_b...

Richard