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November 15, 2003

Fun with Stats: Double Your Displeasure

In an otherwise balanced article on Linux's challenge to Windows, InformationWeek runs the following two charts:

Concerns about Windows

Concerns about Linux

Notice, however, that the Windows chart scales horizontally up to 80 while the Linux chart only manages to get its concerns up to 40.

Posted by D. Weinberger at November 15, 2003 09:33 AM

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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Fun with Stats: Double Your Displeasure:

» Statistical FUD from KnowProSE
Ooh... graphs... and yet, how many people pay attention to the labels? Joho the Blog: Fun with Stats: Double Your Displeasure Fear, uncertainty and doubt... all rolled into a picture. Quaint. I guess they don't think people are smart enough... [Read More]

Tracked on November 15, 2003 08:15 PM

» Deceptive charts from Namahn Weblog
The following charts on Linux's challenge to Windows are nice examples of bad information design. They would have fit perfectly into the Doumont presentation. Try to find the mistake yourself, before reading the explanation below the charts. link sugge... [Read More]

Tracked on November 18, 2003 04:36 AM

» Bad graphs? from datacloud
From IDblog: You may want to file this one away as an example of how graphs can mislead. Dave Weinberger notes that in “an otherwise balanced article on Linux’s challenge to Windows,” InfoWeek illustrates its points with some question... [Read More]

Tracked on November 28, 2003 08:39 PM

Comments

This is classic bad information design. The visual strongly suggests the degree of concern is equal, and that's what a lot of people will take away.

SIGH.

Has no one read Tufte?

Posted by: peterme | November 15, 2003 12:15 PM

Nice eyes on that one. Would this be called deceptive media?

It shows how important it is to read the fine print!

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Posted by: aaron wall | November 16, 2003 09:03 PM

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