Kaiser Fung writes:
Megan McArdle (The Atlantic) is starting a war on the infographics plague. (Here, infographics means infographics posters.) Excellent debunking, and absorbing reading.
It’s a long post. Her overriding complaint is that designers of these posters do not verify their data. The “information” shown on these charts is frequently inaccurate, and the interpretation is sloppy.
In the Trifecta checkup framework, this data deficiency breaks the link between the intent of the graphic and the (inappropriate) data being displayed. (Most infographics posters also fail to find the right chart type for the data being displayed.)
There are two reasons to read this post and then to follow up with Megan’s:
First, it may (no guarantees) sharpen your skills at detecting infographics that are misleading, fraudulent or simply wrong.
Second, if you want to learn how to make effective and misleading, fraudulent or simply wrong infographics, Megan’s article is a starting place with examples.