Dos and Don’ts of Data Visualisation
Whether on purpose or not, a statistician can mislead an audience with a chart. This article explains some chart design principles and common mistakes novice data analysts make. Think about the statistical charts you have seen on billboards, in the news, and in research studies. Using these principles as a guide, would you classify any of those charts as misleading? Be sure to take note of the suggestions for successful dashboards.
Make charts correct
Don't compare apples with oranges
This rule sounds trivial, but it can be quite difficult to respect when things may appear identical. For example, imagine the following trend analysis of CO2 emissions over time in Europe. From a simplistic point of view, the trend over time for the EU from 1995 to 2014 all looks fine. However, the EU did not consist of the same countries over time and therefore the EU-12 cannot be compared with the EU-25 or the EU-28. The countries that formed the EU-12 are not statistically equal to the countries that were part of the EU-28. This is comparing apples with oranges!
