Inspired by Tetris

What should we call this one?  A Tetris chart, perhaps.

In particular, pay attention to the rightmost three pieces: while the shapes look completely different, the actual proportions ranged from 6 to 8 percent.

The Tetris chart fails our self-sufficiency test. The only way to read it is to read the data labels.

Since the proportions add up to 100 percent, this multiple-choice question appears to allow only one answer, even though, as the text said, there were two acceptable answers!  It would be useful to label those two choices separately.  We'd also want to see how the question was phrased.

Seen differently, the Tetris chart is a 4x25 matrix with each cell representing one hundredth of the respondents.

Reference: "Name, Please?  High School Seniors Mostly Don't Know", New York Times, April 19 2009.

Comments

[Eric]

Lousy chart, I agree, but the survey is dubious as well. That "Best and Brightest" got 8% should be a clear indicator that many students didn't take the survey seriously. There should have been a "Don't care" category.

[Michael Pierce]

Seems like they are trying to provide the same type of visualization as this chart, while trying to take as little space as possible.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_24/b4038405.htm

With all of the awkward shapes, colors and data labels, it's very difficult to understand what's going on, other than 44% are "in the dark" (don't know).

The bigger question...should a generation that hasn't even completed their college entrance exams have a "label" yet? What have they accomplished thus far? :-)

[Hadley]

I like the name that Naomi Robbins give these type of chart in her book: waffle charts.

[Cheap Computers]

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[Jed]

Tetris is a mind game and thus I think it inspired this by interlalizing the structure.

Tetris is popular because it has been proven to reduce stress and enhance brain power. The most notable was a UK study showed Tetris helped people that were victims of trauma reduce flashbacks.

As a documentary-article clearly points out, today's video games spend millions and must use violence and marketing to achieve even a percentage of what Tetris has accomplished.

It's amazing how many people playing now. Must see, http://tinyurl.com/r97xna