As an advocate of the power of information graphics, it pains me to complain about their use but there are times when a graphic is superfluous and even confusing. A perfect example is the graphic that accompanied the article titled, “Narrowing the Religion Gap?” in the magazine section of The New York Times on Sunday, February 18, 2007. The graphic was intended to convey the percentage of American churchgoers whose clergy members spoke out about social and moral issues such as the death penalty, stem-cell research, abortion and immigration. However, the wheel-shaped graphic with radiating spokes of differing lengths and a numbered legend for the nine issues was confusing. It did not work as well as a simple table would have.

A table could have included just two columns consisting of the topics and the percentages arranged in descending order. The meaning would have been clear and more readily accessible. The moral of the story is make sure that the graphic conveys the information either more quickly, more readily or with more impact than text alone.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 26th, 2007 at 2:14 pm and is filed under clarity, complexity, information design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.