2024-12-03

IS PROPER VISUAL COMMUNICATION THAT IMPORTANT?

While an inaccurate chart may seem like minimal error, it may have profound repercussions, especially when presenting data to be consumed in real life. One wrong misinterpretation can lead to profound panic amongst readers.

A VISUALIZATION SHARED BY FOX NEWS IN 2016…

HOW BAD WAS THE ECONOMY DURING FORMER PRESIDENT OBAMA’S ADMINISTRATION?. The economy hit a down-low……(allegedly)

ON A SECOND GLANCE……

  • TITLE : Too vague
  • Y-AXIS LABEL :What metric are we using to measure economy growth
  • TIME INTERVAL : 58 years vs 8 years? why go back 50 years?
  • TYPE OF CHART : Is a bar chart really the best option?

IS THIS A BIT BETTER?

## `geom_smooth()` using formula = 'y ~ x'

data source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (The data used is as of June 30th 2016).

HOWEVER…

Calculating economic growth per president administration is not a meaningful task.

The graph itself was being used to attribute the decline of the country’s GDP to the president’s administration which is technically not a a good vizualization tactic as it does not show other factors that could have contributed to the decline.

SO WHY IS ALL THIS IMPORTANT?

With data visualization, people don’t see statistics and data, they see themselves and how the story affects them..

THANK YOU!.