From fellow readers 2

The Facebook privacy chart that's been circulating widely (thanks to Eronarn): a FAQ on how to read the chart sorely needed.

BBC to beam general election results on to Big Ben (thanks to Julien D.): London readers, did this happen?

Another example of an infographics poster (thanks to Daniel L.), this one concerning the use of cell phones by teenagers. Daniel said:

Check out the pie graphs under the sexting category.  He's showing his percentage in color, but leaving the rest of the pie white.  Awesome!  Surefire way to get the data-ink ratio right where you want it to be.

Daniel also commented on this montrosity. I add:

This is a racetrack graph combined with a (redundant) pie chart. A double crown!

Since the tracks all start at the uppermost point of the circles, the racetrack chart plots cumulative data. This jars with the pie chart which plots each category separately.

Comments

[Meng Bomin]

I'm not from London, but I was watching BBC coverage as the election results were coming in, and yes, they did project such a graphic on Big Ben. Of course, since no party won a majority of the seats, none of them ever reached the white line.

[Joel]

It did happen, although it wasn't quite as readable as the graphic suggests and it garnered all of 20 seconds of coverage across the night. Nice idea though; and shows the power of a simple 'chart' when there is a widespread yet unspoken understanding of what each colour represents.

[dan l]

Woot!!! I found a bad one! And somebody agreed with me that it was bad!

I'm really new to the wonderful world of charts. It's weird: I think I learn more from seeing the bad ones than I do the good ones. In this case, I stared at the racetrack with that abomination pie thingy for 5 minutes. I could feel my brain twisting as I tried to interpret it.

[Jon]

The Evolution of Facebook Privacy Over Time ( http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/ ) already includes a pretty good FAQ - certainly more forthcoming than many (most?) visualizations! I suspect the graphic is being forwarded without a link to the original.