Graphics

This week’s big picture goal:

Create well-designed graphics
Identify which chart(s) to use
Understand how cognition/perception impact graphics

Today’s Goals:

Pull the homework
Create graphics in R and python
Start thinking about what makes a chart “ugly”

Ugly Graphics

Weekly wages aren’t really comparable to home prices, scale-wise
Alternatives:
- compare annual wages to home prices
- use some other standard scaling for affordability

Ugly Graphics

A chart from a GPT-5 presentation showing 52>69 and 69=30. The y-axis shows accuracy on 1st pass, and the gpt5 bars are broken into 'without thinking' (52.8) and 'with thinking' (74.9). Comparisons are shown to OpenAI o3 (69.1) and GPT-4o (30.8) -- these comparison bars are the same height even though the accuracy % is more than double for openAI o3 compared to GPT 4o.

Ugly Graphics

A screenshot of a tweet by Bella Figura criticizing a pie chart showing political party votes. Transcribed Text: #chartcrime? Or that Murdoch rag doing its usual mislead? Either way, pie charts are not serious charts and doing the pull out thing is even more amateur. Dont do it. Martin Jones @martincjones.com · 4mo Why is The Australian so bad at charts? This is dreadful. It takes the worst part of a pie chart (comparing area rather than length) and makes it even worse. Does the grey slice look twice as large as the orange slice? Does the blue slice look three times as large as the grey? #chartcrime Primary Vote If a federal election for the House of Representatives was held today, which one of the following would you vote for? If uncommitted, to which one of these do you have a leaning? 7% uncommitted excluded One Nation 6% Coalition 37% Labor 33% Greens 12% Other 12%

Good Graphics

The image is a screenshot of a social media post by Umit Singh Dhuga, highlighting a chart from Bloomberg. The post admires the beauty of the chart, labeling it the best of 2025. The chart is titled "Widening Losses" and shows a line graph depicting the decline in Tesla's share prices as Trump and Musk exchange remarks. On the y-axis, it shows US dollars and ranges from 280 to 325. The x-axis is marked with times ranging from 10:00 to 15:00 on June 5, 2025. The graph includes annotations with quotes attributed to Trump and Musk, pinpointing dramatic drops and providing context to the dialogue. The chart indicates a sharp decrease in Tesla shares, noted at several points with comments. The source of the chart is Bloomberg.

Good Graphics

Figure caption: Changes in the distribution of childhood BLLs by age (A and C) and over time (B and D). The absolute distribution of BLLs experienced in childhood for US adults in 2015 (A) and the relative distribution (C). The absolute distribution of BLLs (B) and the relative distribution for the entire population over time for the period 1940 to 2100 (D). More than 90% of those born between 1950 and 1980 experienced BLLs in excess of 5 µg/dL, the threshold considered “safe” for children. The legacy of early life lead exposure will stay in the United States for decades to come.<br/> Description: The image contains four graphs labeled A, B, C, and D, depicting population distribution and blood-lead levels over different time periods. Each graph uses a stacked area chart to display data with varying colors. Graph A, titled Age Distribution: 2015, shows population size on the y-axis and age on the x-axis. It uses different colored bands to represent various early life blood-lead levels, showing peaks around ages 0-5 and 50-70. Graph B, titled Total Pop: 1940–2100, displays the total population over time with projections beyond 2020. It uses years on the x-axis and population count on the y-axis, using color-coded segments for different blood-lead levels. Graph C, titled Relative Distribution by Age: 2015, presents the percentage of population on the y-axis by age on the x-axis, using the same color scheme as graph A to represent blood-lead levels. Graph D, titled Total Pop: 1940–2100, showcases a relative percentage distribution similar to graph C but over time from 1940 to 2100, emphasizing changes in blood-lead levels over decades. A legend at the bottom indicates colors for early life blood-lead levels: dark red for 30+ µg/dL, orange for 25-29.9 µg/dL, yellow for 20-24.9 µg/dL, pale yellow for 15-19.9 µg/dL, light blue for 10-14.9 µg/dL, blue for 5-9.9 µg/dL, and dark blue for 0-4.9 µg/dL.

Good Graphics