There are examples of junk visualizations, and then there are examples of junk charts that just take your breath away.
The Indian news portal, FirstPost.in, which describes itself as a "trusted guide to the crush of news and ideas around you", published a story titled Shivraj set for massive victory in Madhya Pradesh: Survey | Firstpost, which has this chart (link to the image) - take a minute to study it. Then study it again. It is no optical illusion or card-trick being played here.
The estimated voteshare of the INC (Indian National Congress) party goes up from 37.6 to 44%, and yet the bar goes DOWN! Ditto for the BJP, whose vote share goes up from 32.4% in 2008 to an estimated 33%, and yet the bar goes DOWN!
If you started to think that the bars had somehow been switched, the third group - BSP - is drawn correctly.
And then you have the "OTHERS" - which plots an estimated vote share of 16% at where the 14% mark would fall.
The maker of this chart should be congratulated for getting so many things wrong in one simple bar chart.
(Thanks to Kumar for first sharing this chart with me.)
The Indian news portal, FirstPost.in, which describes itself as a "trusted guide to the crush of news and ideas around you", published a story titled Shivraj set for massive victory in Madhya Pradesh: Survey | Firstpost, which has this chart (link to the image) - take a minute to study it. Then study it again. It is no optical illusion or card-trick being played here.
The estimated voteshare of the INC (Indian National Congress) party goes up from 37.6 to 44%, and yet the bar goes DOWN! Ditto for the BJP, whose vote share goes up from 32.4% in 2008 to an estimated 33%, and yet the bar goes DOWN!
If you started to think that the bars had somehow been switched, the third group - BSP - is drawn correctly.
And then you have the "OTHERS" - which plots an estimated vote share of 16% at where the 14% mark would fall.
The maker of this chart should be congratulated for getting so many things wrong in one simple bar chart.
(Thanks to Kumar for first sharing this chart with me.)