Original forms of expression in diagramming

In his book “ Speak on the language of diagrams ”, Jean Zelazny proposed a rather amusing exercise, with the help of which you can evaluate how effectively (or ineffectively) one or another form of a diagram can represent the data behind it.

Below are six examples. For each, quickly write down on the sheet the percentage number corresponding to each segment.

Rules:
- it is impossible to think
- you can not go back to the already viewed,
- you can not erase and change their decisions, because we agreed that you will not think.
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Go, go, go!


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Now compare your guesses with the real information contained in the examples.


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If your results are very different from these figures - at least for diagrams A , B and D - then it becomes clear that these diagrams do not fulfill their main function, namely, they do not give a clear idea of ​​the relationship between the image and the numerical indices.

At the same time, almost all were accurate in estimating the percentages in the last example ( E ), presented in the form of a traditional pie chart. Here it was much easier for testers to see that segment a ) is about 5%, d ) - about 25%, and e ) - just over 50%. In fact, the last example of E is based on the same data as example A. I just changed the names to see what it would lead to. Compare the percentages that you wrote down for examples A and E , and you will understand how much the results can vary depending on the shape of the diagram.

Personally, I did about that. Surprisingly adequately, I took the "coffin" :-) although during the test it stalled on it.

An absolutely clear lesson can be learned from the exercise - if you need to clearly display the actual relationships, overcome the desire for originality and rely on traditional pie charts (here we are talking about the distribution of shares, this is not universal advice, note zencd) . Use the same creative approach in order to increase the visibility of diagrams due to a good arrangement on the sheet, an easily readable font and constructive use of colors and shading.