But then again, what to I know about design.

A bar chart would be much easier to read.

Reading these pixel charts is almost impossible with any accuracy, much like telling whether a white square on a black field is the same size or different than an adjacent black square on a white field. our eyes and brains simply don't function that way.

Having someone try to grasp that some irregular area is slightly bigger or smaller than some other irregular area is about the worst form or designer abuse I can imagine.

Bar charts may be "boring", but they're boring because they are used (and abused) so often due to their effectiveness at conveying comparative information.

The use of irregular shapes makes useful comparisons diffictult, and the use of a common ratio, or a common height or width would make comparing quantities easier. But then, isn't that going toward a bar chart?

If the topic is presentation of information, however, a bit of caution is in order. Quick, tell me the approximate relative proportions of dark green and light green in the left "chart." That's what I thought. My point is that any type of chart can be designed poorly. The chart on the right is much better in this regard, since all same-color pixels are in blocks, instead of arbitrary shapes. But that's more "boring," of course, and might not win kudos from the design community. "Gotta ramp it up -- make Pac-Man! Yeah, that's the ticket!"

It's not that I love boring ol' charts; I just get surprised when people start disassociating visual design from its intended purpose.

If you want to make comparative judgement easy (as the NYT graphic should), use a linear scale (bar graph or similar). Don't use areas. The Wired chart is more excusable to me, because it's not trying to facilitate compares, just to show what portion of the whole is in a category.

Maybe it's the higher volume of data in the Wired and BW examples that naturally lends to better use of the form?

The Wired chart is merely the latest in a continuing series of graphic design cutenesses which worked for me up until the magazine underwent a major design revision a few years ago. It's not helpful, because it requires more work to interpret this data within such a small, irregularly-divided space. Eye-catching, yes. But that wasn't enough for me to refrain from canceling my subscription. Pixels aren't the solution to everything. Print should employ its strengths while it still exists.

So at least two high-profile graphic designers apparently seem bored by convention, to the degree that they're both willing to hobble the usefulness of the work they're doing. Or their art directors are. Do I smell desperation in the air?

I never found pie charts hard to read. Thick slices vs. thin slices = greater vs. lesser. How is that a problem for a culture raised to prefer visual cues to in-depth text?

In any case, it is hard to understand the relationships in either shape or color - it’s like you are looking for meaning where none exists (which may be a subtle joke, considering the topic of the article).

Just numbers and labels would have simply sufficed on the left. Although the relative positions still lead the viewer astray, the one on the right shows a bit more virtue its original context. There you can see rectangles being a more efficient use of space than cylinders, and the grid being used for a logarithmic expansion of relevant data.

The best bet would be to take a square (the total, 100%), and make each group not pixels but columns of equal height (the height of the square). The width of each column then determines the area and thus the data point. So you end up with a colored square comprised of a series of stripes. It's easy to compare stripe width and thus interpret the data.

The best bet would be to take a square (the total, 100%), and make each group not pixels but columns of equal height (the height of the square). The width of each column then determines the area and thus the data point. So you end up with a colored square comprised of a series of stripes. It's easy to compare stripe width and thus interpret the data.

http://eagereyes.org/Techniques/SquarePieCharts.html

I have a more detailed critique of the Times chart here:

http://juiceanalytics.com/writing/2007/07/square-pie-eye/

I think the square design is
a) easier to layout
b) familiar because of HD defrag software etc
c) New..! Improved..! Different..! Web2.0..!
d) harder to read than a pie chart

I am sorry but this just sounds like a "web 2.0" attempt to reinvent the wheel just for change sake rather than to improve something.

the advantage of the pie chart is that you don't have a subjective way of choosing the shape of pixels for each area: everything is treated equally

The right one is better at this, although not as good as it could be.

Currently, only the "biggest share" is obvious in both of them.

I mean, c'mon. We evolved to recognize the size of pie, not the size of randomly conjoined squares.

For example, I'm sure you've all heard the question "Why is the destination always on the edge of the map?"

A glance at any map reveals it's broken into a grid, say 9x5. The area of the page is 45, whereas the area of the squares of the perimeter total 24, which is over 50%.

This means that the destination is more likely to be on the edge than anywhere else on the page, something which is not obvious hence the question!

You just have to look at the game of "Go" to see how important it is to grab territory at the edge of the board, because that's where most of it is!

The only salient attribute I can find for these origami/tessellated versions of the bar-chart is that they allow for a more compact layout of the information by cleaving any associations between the legend font size and the pitch and width of the bar elements along a single axis.

I hope the graphical designer wished to be understood, but failing that he's taking the chance to laugh maniacally at you all as a small consolation prize.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treemap

I crack myself up... Guffaw.

That said, treemapping is typically used to deal with information that is heirarchically related, not to compare disparate statistics or quantities.

However, in this case, I would not even try to translate the charts: they are painful to look at, and I can't "get it" in 2 seconds like a pie or bar chart.

Sure, a pie chart may not depict data as finely, but you can get the big picture fast. All I see here is what someone else already touched upon: A fragmented hard drive.

The Ascii art in the comments takes the cake. Asterisks are the OG pixels.

And since I'm on the subject of software now, you should take a look at http://sourceforge.net/project/screenshots.php?group_id=179516 which shows what I believe is a better way to show multi-level data instead of that graph from Wired.

http://www.theotherleading.com/ces/images/Grid_apr2007.jpg

Which I thought was pretty nice.

http://flickr.com/photos/mastababa/tags/stats/

http://eagereyes.org/Techniques/SquarePieCharts.html

I have a more detailed critique of the Times chart here:

http://juiceanalytics.com/writing/2007/07/square-pie-eye/

For example, on the religion chart you have two rows of 10 blocks each, but because one starts on the top row, and the top left block is already occupied, it's forced to wrap around one block on the right.

As others point out, comparing irregular shapes is not the best way to convey information.

I took the religion data and popped it into a pie chart. Do you honestly expect me to believe that the pixel chart is easier to read than this?

http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/1541/pietc9.jpg

And I don't get where people have problems reading pie charts. It seems rather easy to me -- way easier than these pixel charts.

Although these charts are useful for comparisons of few data items in a database, It becomes hard to understand if many data objects are analyzed, since it will be hard to see the smaller pixels as well as you will end up with too many arrows.

Can somebody give these retards a copy of Tufte's Visual Display and a spoonful of common sense? *sigh

imagine if they used pixels instead of brushstrokes...