11–19 of 19 posts
I feel this would have been more suitable as a blog post rather than a two-column layout under a "research" subdomain. I wonder if "Tableau Research" has a rigorous peer-review process for its research publications.
"In this unhinged rant, I lay out my suspicion that a lot of visualiza- tions are bullshit: charts that do not have even the common decency to intentionally lie but are totally unconcerned about the state of the world or any practical utility. I suspect that bullshit charts take up a large fraction of the time and attention of actual visualization pro- ducers and consumers, and yet are seemingly absent from academic…
Funny, considering that's a core part of Tableau's value proposition.
"In this unhinged rant, I lay out my suspicion that a lot of visualiza- tions are bullshit: charts that do not have even the common decency to intentionally lie but are totally unconcerned about the state of the world or any practical utility. I suspect that bullshit charts take up a large fraction of the time and attention of actual visualization pro- ducers and consumers, and yet are seemingly absent from academic…
> "for instance, a bar chart might tell me that so-and-so many widgets were sold during a particular period of time" Funny, considering that's a core part of Tableau's value proposition.
Also, it's a sign that at the very least this person working there genuinely cares about the product they're selling, so that's good
https://cms.qz.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Modi_Chart.jpg...
https://qz.com/india/1388030/indias-bjp-peddled-a-prime-exam...
Some other people who are knowledgeable in the domain have posted that there might be some rigor issues.
But I think a lot of us can empathize with the feeling of "No you idiot, that's not how you use that at all!" when it comes to some area we know more about than the average person.
I'm pretty sure my car mechanic winces every time I bring my vehicle back into the shop. That's what I pay him for I guess.
With respect, this author misunderstands Edward Tufte's use of the term "Chart junk." Chart junk isn't just pointless decoration on charts. It's also misleading or missing scales, deceptive or inept ways of representing data, and so forth.
The mortal sins of data visualization misrepresent the data; the venal sin of chartjunk distracts from the data.
So disappointed :) I was hoping this was going to be a visualization OF bullshit, not a rant about bullshit visualizations. All seriousness aside, Correll fails to realize that the layout, length, and organization of your text are also forms of visualization, and at those, he fails completely. "It is my contention that many (most?) visualizations are bullshit in either the Frankfurt sense of attempting to persuade wh…
Talking about bullshit visualizations I think this should top the chart: https://cms.qz.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Modi_Chart.jpg... https://qz.com/india/1388030/indias-bjp-peddled-a-prime-exam...
This from your article is a better example -
https://theatlas.com/charts/HkBllCLO7
What does that mean? Is it CPI? Is it consistent with worlds prices? Because of inflation prices go up over time. It goes up over time. Is the chart saying anything?
Here's a good example of Bullshit Visualization's - https://xkcd.com/1138/
It's things you'll see in the media/PR Journal articles that are nothing but look pretty and give a story a feel of authority when it shouldn't.
So disappointed :) I was hoping this was going to be a visualization OF bullshit, not a rant about bullshit visualizations. All seriousness aside, Correll fails to realize that the layout, length, and organization of your text are also forms of visualization, and at those, he fails completely. "It is my contention that many (most?) visualizations are bullshit in either the Frankfurt sense of attempting to persuade wh…
Have you ever read an academic paper? This is a pretty bog standard layout.
Academic papers -- the gold standard for readability!
Said no one, ever.
