If you teach infographics and visualization, here's an example to use when explaining the differences and similarities between designing for your peers (or for analyzing your data) and designing to communicate with broader, nonspecialized audiences. An hour ago, while reading The New York Times*, I came across a lovely scatter plot, the first picture above this paragraph. I read its headline and deck: "Mirth and Taxes. A study of 54 nations (...) found that those with more progressive tax rates had happier citizens, on average."
Does this scatter plot clearly support the message mentioned in its intro? nytimes.com/interactive/20… #dataviz #infographics
— Alberto Cairo (@albertocairo) April 14, 2013
I couldn't see a solid relationship between the variables. In fact, a lot of countries are "more progressive but less happy" than the United States.