Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Discussing an infographic by Reuters


There's been some discussion on Twitter today about the Reuters infographic on the top left. Jonathan Keller redesigned it (top right) to include a full Y-scale. Christopher Ingraham has summarized the conversation.

Which one of the graphics is right? I don't really know. Keller's does a much better job at showing the actual proportions, and at revealing the tiny amount of women at the top levels of the corporate world. But it bothers me because it obscures the slight progress made in the last couple of decades. That was my original objection. Can we get the best of both worlds? Perhaps. Here's a quick and rough sketch of what I'd try to do (IMPORTANT: See discussion and updates below):



UPDATE1 : Francis Gagnon has created a new version of the line chart in which the Y-axis goes up to 50%, instead of 100%. What do you think?

UPDATE 2: Chris Moore's design (see comments.)

UPDATE 3: Another idea from a reader (see comments.)

UPDATE 4: Three new excellent contributions by Robert Kosara, Kaiser Fung, and Krisztina Szabó