I’d give Alberto the benefit of the doubt on it.

Inviting someone to speak at a university isn’t a direct endorsement of that speaker’s work or beliefs. The Q&A at the end of the presentation is an opportunity to challenge McCandless with questions about style, substance, and truthfulness in data visualization, and I have little doubt Alberto’s students will jump at the chance. Pitching this event to McCandless as a point-counterpoint debate would diminish the chances of constructive dialog because he might view it as a hostile environment and would be less likely to accept the invitation in the first place.

Here’s another way to think about it –

McCandless has reasonably high visibility, so people who take an interest in data visualization are likely to come across his work in one way or another. Assuming that’s the case, is it better for students to hear from McCandless in a forum hosted by Alberto, or would you prefer for them to learn about McCandless in a forum like a TED talk where there are no questions from the audience at all?

I was surpised about that, in a similar way when I saw this otherwise nicely produced video, with a time series style visualization that has curves evoking time travel here: https://youtu.be/AdSZJzb-aX8?t=226 and also posterized, ‘flat design’ views here: https://youtu.be/AdSZJzb-aX8?t=215 -> in contrast to the points made by Tufte at the beginning and end of this video.

So much of journalism is, due to the nature of those segments, about attracting eyeballs and catching the attention of the general public. A good fraction of which, on a long commute after an exhaustive workday, ‘consumes’ media exclusively or primarily as entertainment rather than understanding economy or public policy. I’m not suggesting that engaging journalism and clear information conveyance can’t be combined, but not all outlets try to serve both of these purposes. (imo)

Robert,

The video that you mentioned, which I commented about when it first came out, is deeply disturbing. It contains contradictory information without even being aware of it. The goals of infographics as defined by some of the infographic designers who appear in the video are not even met by their own work. For instance, they talk about their purpose being to make something that is complex, which might take days to understand, simple and clear. As they are making these statements, however, examples of their graphics appear in the video that are incomprehensible.

Kim,

Knowing Robert, I suspect that he is familiar with the Mersenne visualization of 12-tone harmonies apart from the video, but perhaps not. We’ll let him tell us if his comments about that visualization in particular are misplaced due to insufficient understanding of the context. I have seen this swirly line graph in context and found it pretty but incomprehensible. It is a timeline, but the lines suggest that some things go backwards in time, which makes no sense. Many of the visualizations in the video can be shown to be ineffective, even when the contexts are fully understood. This, however, is tangential to our topic.

A better approach would have been to have 2 presenters 1 after another representing the 2 different camps and allow the attendees to make up their own minds.
OR a follow up lecture with a critical review of both methods to elaborate pro’s and cons.

In my simplistic view, you interpret the claims and visuals of McCandless literally, whereas they are meant, and should be understood and evaluated, in a different frame. Whereas this frame might conflict with some parts of the data visualization dogma, it still has a strong and worthwhile purpose. Although McCandless himself does not necessarily articulate this purpose, it is still there and is recognized by others.

“What do I say to someone who tells me that his boss attended the lecture, and this exposure to McCandless’ work set his efforts to promote effective practices back by several years?”

I give the following suggestion: “Your boss misinterpreted McCandless’ talk as data visualization dogma, although McCandless never presents his work as dogma. I guess you have now have the perfect opportunity to talk with your boss, and discuss the difference between form and function. You’ll find plenty of literature to support both views.”

Andrew,

I’m having a hard time making sense of what you’ve written. Regarding data visualization, I’m dogmatic about one thing: a data visualization should inform and do so effectively. By effectively, I mean that it should inform in a way that is as easy as possible to understand and in a way that is truthful. What is the “different frame” that we should use to interpret McCandless’ work? The title that he bears — “journalist” — provides a frame. His work is supposed to be read as journalism. A journalist strives to express the news in a way that is accessible to his readers and is truthful. He fails to fulfill this role. He is not a good journalist by any definition that I know.

Your answer to the boss’ question suggests that you don’t work closely with people who struggle to communicate data within their organizations. They put up with nonsense constantly as they deal with the naïve demands of people to present data in ineffective ways. “Make it more colorful! Give me bubbles, lots of bubbles!” They are not looking for more reasons to explain to the boss why that set of five values shouldn’t be shown in a treemap. They do not deserve to have their efforts set back by the dysfunctional desires and expectations that McCandless creates.

To suggest McCandless is the source of all our data visualization woes amounts to a gross exaggeration. There are lots of proponents of infographics, and there have been lots of bad charts and useless eye candy since before PowerPoint was even invented. You are tilting at windmills by going after McCandless. He has his first amendment rights, and I see more benefit than harm by letting him speak at a conference. I think you need to let this one go.

JBJNR,

Don’t misquote me. I am not blaming McCandless for “all of our data visualization woes.” Stick to what I’ve said. McCandless is an influential proponent of bad data visualization practices. He gets a great deal of exposure, which gives him a great deal of responsibility. I’m saying that he shouldn’t be given a platform without providing a counterpoint.

Anthony,

What part of my assessment of IEEE VisWeek is inaccurate?

Stephen,

Although I don’t think every speaker who isn’t following best practices or what research has demonstrated requires a public critique, with someone who’s as contentious a figure as McCandless I think it’s an excellent pedagogical technique. Having two very different points of view clashing on stage can be an extremely effective way of educating folks — both people who’re attending and those who watch it online. It’s particularly useful for novices such as myself. Wrapping your head around the rules of data viz can be a bit daunting at first, especially when a lot of practitioners ignore them. Getting to see a systematic critique followed by a vigorous defense is far more illuminating than responses to questions from the audience (especially if there’s a body of research that shows that the speaker is dead wrong). It also can make for great theatre, which increases the odds the lessons will stick.

Anders,

I appreciate your response. The purpose of my critiques is always pedagogical. I regret that Alberto, who is a teacher, did not make the event at his university an opportunity for people like you to learn best practices. Unfortunately, what Alberto did was give McCandless a platform for promoting his work, even though Alberto opposes much that McCandless’ work exhibits.

Yes, but Steve, you’re assuming that McCandless’s work is done to support decision-making. It isn’t, and he doesn’t present it that way. I am trying to put my thoughts together, and will start sending responses soon.

Steve,

Even if I have to finish proofreading ‘The Truthful Art’ before the end of November, I am going to devote some time to respond to this. I will try to address these topics:

(1) David’s visit to UM
(2) Your approach to criticism vs. mine
(3) My opinion about David’s work

Let me address (1) in this comment.

I didn’t really brought him to Miami. He was going to be in town for other reasons, we communicated over e-mail and he generously offered himself to spend some time with students. I seized the opportunity. I like my students to be exposed to —to plagiarize William James— the “varieties of the visualization experience”, no matter how far those varieties are from my own view.

David gave a talk in the morning. The audience was 90% students from my school, who HAVE been exposed, ARE being exposed, or WILL be exposed to elementary visualization principles, as my infographics and visualization class is part of the core of our programs. In my clases we constantly critique graphics, and that includes some similar to McCandless’s controversial ones. We even did a very detailed critique of the Billion Pound-O-Gram once or twice: students analyzed the data, and the way to make the display better and clearer.

The other 10% of the audience were professionals I know; most have read visualization books like mine or yours. They also are capable of seeing a presentation like David’s and taking his words (or anybody else’s, for that matter) with a grain of salt. Therefore, your fears are baseless.

I’d also say that that even if this weren’t the case, it wouldn’t be a problem at all for me. I am fine with people being exposed to ideas I consider dubious (and I didn’t see many in David’s presentation, to tell the truth), to later reason why they may not be so good. That’s part of anybody’s education. By the way, I’ve made much worse graphics than David has in my career, and I learned from them. That includes 3D exploded pie charts with shadows underneath.

Finally, and just to finish point (1), I’d like to add that I invited you and David to come to the University of Miami, sit together for a couple of hours, and have a conversation moderated by me. David has already accepted, depending on data availability. I hope you’ll be up to it. I think that it’d be very informative for the community.

(2) Your approach to criticism vs. mine

During our e-mail interchange, we talked about your approach to visualization criticism versus mine. I am going to borrow a bit from my own messages.

We do have different ways of addressing things we disagree with. Yours is direct, sharp and even harsh sometimes, mine is oblique, based on either:

1) …meeting people who do things in ways I consider puzzling, learn about the reasons why they do them, and then, if I haven’t changed my mind, try to convince them to do otherwise,

2) …or trying to redesign their work in a constructive manner. On this, I will refer to Viégas’s and Wattenberg’s fantastic article, which summarized my view well: https://medium.com/@hint_fm/design-and-redesign-4ab77206cf9#.4b09uzdkp

3) …or writing about the general problems of their work in my books and articles, often (but not always) by abstracting those problems, rather than referring to specific graphics.

It is still to be seen which strategy is better in the long term. Based on what we know about the human mind, though, I have the hunch that mine will be much more effective than yours, as people are put off when dealing with articles like the ones you wrote on McCandless. I know this first-hand, and it is a shame. It has happened even with my own students, even if I always explain the context of your articles. You preach to the choir, and may not be convincing many. The evidence I have for this is anecdotal, of course so, needless to say, I may be wrong.

Niceness isn’t a pose or a desire to be liked. It’s a persuasion strategy. It is often said that it is wrong to focus on the tone of a criticism when you should be focusing on its content instead. I disagree. Tone matters, and it matters a lot if you really want to change people’s minds, like you do.

(3) My opinion about David’s work

I am torn on this one. I still don’t like much of what appears on his first book, and part of what appears in his second one, and that’s why I use part of it for constructive critiques in my classes. I think that a noticeable portion of his work is either too simplistic or misleading because the data behind it has been mishandled. Some other readers of yours have pointed out some instances of this. However, I don’t think that this rules out his work. I have made worse mistakes in the past, and I learned from them, little by little.

I agree with Andrew Van De Moere’s first paragraph above. Also, perhaps we should try to find a way to understand why David’s work is so appealing to so many people. Really, I am curious about it. This includes people I know who work in quantitive and scientific fields, people who know a lot about Math, and stats, and science. I find people’s tastes fascinating and worth respecting. If so many think that these graphics are attractive, if those graphics make them stop, and read, and feel curious about the topic covered, and prompted to learn more, there’s something to learn about them, whether you or I like or not.

Steve, I hope that you and your readers will understand that I’ll refrain from replying to any further messages in this thread. I have tons of projects to grade and a book to finish proofreading before the end of November. Thanks for a great discussion.

Hi Steve! You ask: “Should I become less direct in my criticism of harmful practices?”

My answer is “Yes” because what is “harmful” to you is not “harmful” to all.

I first challenge your assumption that McCandless is harmful. It comes down to your reply to Andrew Vande Moore. You said: “I’m dogmatic about one thing: a data visualisation should inform and do so effectively.”

Who says “data visualization” should inform effectively? Which of the two words “data” and “visualization” proscribe effective communication? I look at the work of Stefanie Posavec and I see data visualization. I see art. I see inspiration. It’s data, visualized. I look at McCandless and I see data, visualized. It doesn’t inform. but it’s beautiful, and fun to look at. There’s no harm in that, per se.

“Harm” comes into it if we assume that McCandless’ approach is the right way to make effective, informative visualizations. We should, and do, challenge that assumption.

The thing is, I’m not sure McCandless makes that claim about his work. I just rewatched his TED talk. He describes curiosity and exploration. He doesn’t claim it’s the best way to do things. He talks more about his personal drive to explore the data for himself. Sharing it is almost a secondary concern.

Most data visualization is undertaken to inform effectively. Alberto’s course, presumably, focusses on this approach. A course focussed only on functionality would be a sad thing indeed: students need to learn about engagement and beauty, too. My assumption would be that Alberto’s students are well enough educated, and presented with enough opinions that they make their own judgements. I’d also hope that Alberto also encourages his students to explore online resources. I very much hope he points them all to this blog and this fascinating debate.

Summary: yes – be critical of harmful practices when they pretend to be something they aren’t. Does McCandless claim his work is anything more than fun, beautiful stuff made from data and built to satisfy his curiosity? I’m not sure he does.

Considering the dross of “debates” that are airing at the current time, I think that a discussion between Steve and David, chaired by Alberto would be pretty awesome.

Not sure if it would get as many hits on YouTube as Adele, but it would an interesting bar chart ;-)

Andy,

In my previous post, I failed to respond to the first part of your comments, which I’ll do now. That McCandless does harm is not an assumption. I am personally acquainted with the harm that he does. I’ve already made this point clear. The harm that he does is not to me. If I were concerned only for myself, I would merely ignore him. The harm that he does is to people that I care about. These people are my readers and students who struggle to correct his negative influence and to countless others who follow the example that he sets.

If you are seriously questioning whether we can say that data visualization should inform, then there’s no need to discuss this further. Let’s bear in mind that the term “information” contains the term “inform.” In the introduction to his first book, McCandless writes: “Every day, every hour, maybe even every minute, we’re looking and absorbing information via the web. We’re steeped in it. May even lost in it. So perhaps what we need are well-designed, colourful and — hopefully — useful charts to help us navigate.” This suggest to me that his intention is to inform. The fact that he calls himself a journalists suggest that his intention is to information us about the news. If McCandless defines data visualization is some way that means something other than a visual representation of data that is used to help us understand data (i.e., to be informed), then he should clarify what he means by the term. In my books and courses, I define the term quite explicitly, and then I help people learn how to do it well based on that definition. I find it interesting that so many people suggest that McCandless means something different by data visualization than I do but no one seems to know what that is. Wouldn’t it be nice if he told us.

Stephen,

Throughout your responses you return to the claim that anyone who disagrees with you is not a professional data visualization practitioner–that they must be an academic or a dilettante. I disagree. I think there to be a significant number of practitioners who look at McCandless’ work not as libertine regression, but as innovation, and who conversely look at your own work not as the pinnacle of data visualization theory, but rather as stolid advice for simple and effective charts. Are his data visualization products successful? Perhaps, perhaps not (No, it’s not that I’m demonstrating academic nonchalance, it’s that the question of success in visual rhetoric depends on the definition of the audience–we are not all building BI tools for busy executives). But regardless of how we might feel about the individual things a McCandless produces, I think it’s clear that the advancement of the field, by which I mean the establishment of new techniques that prove effective in a wide variety of data visualization uses, will come from someone like McCandless, who experiments and courts failure.

The subset of the field that you focus on in your professional capacity is not concerned with advancing the sophistication of data visualization methods. That’s fine, it’s a big subset, and more importantly it’s a group that needs the effective and clear advice that you provide. But I think it’s equivocating when you present that group as a stand in for the field. I think data visualization needs effective radial charting, network diagrams, abstract geospatial visualization, and yes, even effective word clouds. By labeling the work of someone like McCandless as degenerate, and dangerous to the field such that it could set it back for years, or that it might infect a decision maker and make the life of some analyst somewhere more difficult, I think that’s ignoring the need for innovation, risk-taking and advancement in data visualization, a field that really is very young and desperately needs such activity.

Steve,

Remember that I am both an academic and a practitioner. Like you, I consult with companies and have worked in media organizations. I also design infographics a freelancer. Please don’t think that I live in an Ivory tower. We don’t have those in Miami.

I have found David’s influence many times. Often, I use it as a teaching opportunity, or as the topic for a discussion. In other cases, the influence is good, as David’s graphics are sometimes engaging and fun. I actually compare his most humorous work to Nigel Holmes’s in that regard.

I have the hunch that if people don’t get inspiration from David when designing posters or large superficial graphic summaries, they’ll find it elsewhere. I actually prefer people to be influenced by him than by those horrid marketing “infographics” that have become sadly so common in the past decade, and that taint that noble term.

I also believe that cognitively undemanding graphics may have their role, often if they are complemented with deeper coverage afterward or with links to sources that readers whose interest has been raised by the graphic can follow.

I feel tempted to use a term coined by Stephanie Posavec –I believe– to refer to David’s style of graphics: data illustrations. Based on what I heard in his presentation, I think he’d find it appropriate.

Regarding your being nice. Indeed you are. And your input on my new book has been invaluable.

I’m not trying to be a keyboard warrior when I type this, but I will give my ten pence on the discussion…

From my view, and I own one of his books, he’s a great ambassador for the extreme lengths you can go to in showcasing different ways to look at data. They are specialist, one of a kind visualisations that highlight different ways you can make sense of a large amount of data. He’s not trying to say ‘this is how you do it’ and he’s not trying to say ‘line graphs and pie charts are not good enough’. However, if he put the book together using just those graphical representations, then it wouldn’t sell very many copies. What’s he’s created is a couple of books that do a very good job of showing people you can make some beautiful, fun designs with a little bit of thinking outside the box and a lot of coding. He deserves the high level of respect he’s given for this work. And yes, I know what we really strive for is repeatable, attractive and reliable solutions. That’s why tools like Qlik, Tableau, SAP, Board, Birst, SAS, Cognos and so on are around. It’s not about one-off coding solutions, it’s about ease of use and delivering multiple solutions. Though I will say some of those solutions are sometimes sold forgetting a key principle – single version of the truth (it’s almost vanished in the race to sell into departments with the ability to upload your own spreadsheet).

In the real world i.e. away from published media and actually delivering visualisations, it’s completely different. And yes, I’ve had to deal with people saying, ‘but can’t it look a but sexier’ in the past (more on this in a moment – this appears to be turning into a big piece!). The main point about data visualisation, for me, is that they should always be delivered through a lifecycle project process and a team effort. Yes, you need to get the data right, stage it properly and ensure there is 100% trust in it. But you also need to ensure it’s not just you delivering it as a quick one-off. It takes a team of people to view ideas objectively and constructively. And it takes a defined process where you are willing to revisit the solution to tweak or change it to get it right. There is no point one person delivering a visualisation and walking into the sunset without getting that correct feedback. Yes, the feedback can seem harsh or uncaring, but it’s also key to your work being accepted, trusted and used. I for one would not want it any other way.

Going back to those people who say ‘but can’t it look a bit sexier?’. You know what? They’re right, it can. It’s all down to the pinnacle of what we’re trying to achieve – adoption (as in your solution being used constantly, not obtaining extra children). However, we have a duty of care to those people we are delivering a solution for. Yes, sometimes expectations have to be managed, but you know what, where’s the harm in including them in the design process? That way you are ensuring the end user can’t get away with just saying ‘I want it like that’ whilst pointing at a graph of kittens and having no further input. It gives them some responsibility it, keeps them engaged, makes them think about the end result more and enables you to manage their expectations and perceptions along the way.
So when customers say to me ‘can I have that in red, that in green, that a bit bigger, and that visualisation is a little underwhelming/over the top’, we should always strive to say ‘OK’, roll our sleeves up and think about it a little more. And if a manager does say they really want pictures of kittens or something equally as terrible in their board reports, steer them, advise them, guide them – because as well as design requiring a team, these big solutions are never built for one person.

What I would say is ‘good on you, David’ for bringing concepts such as data visualisation to the masses, as too many people spend too long looking at tables of data when they can spend a moment to get the same understanding of where the trend is in a chart or graph. He’s not trying to say all visualisations should be like this, he’s trying to say look what you can do if you think about it a little. Context, that’s what he’s selling you and I keep referring to his book to remind myself of that.

Mike

Kim,

You are a skilled and thoughtful data visualization professional. When you work for a client, you take the time to understand their needs and to provide a solution that addresses their needs effectively. I applaud that. You are rare in the world of data visualization, however. Keep in mind, however, that your work and the work of others like you constitutes a tiny fraction of the visualizations that are created and used in the world. Most of the people who visualize data lack your training and the time that’s needed to build elaborate infographics or graphical applications. The vast majority of data visualizations are created by people like those who, if they’re lucky, attend workshops like mine and read books like mine that are designed to teach simple and practical skills. These are the folks who struggle to make sense of data and present what they’ve found to others in their organizations. These are the folks who are asked to produce bubbles because their boss watched McCandless’ TED Talk and decided that bubbles are cool. This is what concerns me. There is a reason that people ask for silly bubbles. This desire didn’t spring from their imagination unbidden. It was implanted in them by examples that dominate the web. These examples should be stamped with a warning: “This visualization may be harmful to your health.”

Stephen,

I hate to dispel the myth that I and my firm are so special. I have a computer science bachelor’s degree, but everything I learned about visualization was with far less than even you provide. I ate your books up as they appeared in the book store. We were working off academic papers, the influence of a few pioneers, and pure gut feeling.

It’s every practitioner, no matter what their field, to use the best practices that fit the job. This is a nascent field rife with growing pains, but that doesn’t dismiss us from our responsibility. We can’t simply blame someone else’s practices for our output.

All I can say here, is once I read this line:

“Who says “data visualization” should inform effectively?”

From Andy Cotgreave, I had to throw in the towel.

If that’s really the kind of argument we’re up against, what’s the point?

Two objections to my position seem to dominate recent comments: 1) I excessively emphasize the importance of day-to-day data visualization done by people in the workplace, and 2) I fail to appreciate McCandless contributions as an innovator. I’ll try to address them now.

It is absolutely true that I approach data visualization primarily from an awareness of and concern for the needs of typical practitioners. By typical, I mean those who represent the vast majority of information visualizers. These are people who rarely spend their time reading data visualization blogs—even this one. Their jobs don’t allow them the luxury of spare time to do anything but produce work. I’m talking about people whose day-to-day jobs require them to make sense of data that concerns their organizations and to then present what they’ve found to others who use this information to do their jobs, much of which involves decisions. After all, as Daniel Kahneman pointed out in Thinking, Fast and Slow, organizations of all types are, more than anything else, “decision factories.” Although we don’t see their work on the Web, these folks create well over 90% of the data visualizations that are produced today. These folks are my primary audience. These folks are not well served by the data visualati. In fact, most people who write about and/or teach data visualization are not familiar with the work of these folks and the challenges that they face. These are the folks that encounter in my teaching and consulting work, but rarely hear from in forums such as my blog.

The other audience that I try to keep in mind in my work, but can only reach indirectly, are the consumers of data visualization. These are the folks whose expectations are often set by examples that they see on the web. These are the folks who might watch the new commercial for Microsoft Office 2016, which features McCandless, and from that assume that they should be seeing more treemaps and sunburst diagrams in their daily reports.

Most of you who have made comments, including those of you who appreciate McCandless’ work, have admitted that his work should not be emulated by this vast audience that I serve. The problem, however, is that McCandless’ work reaches into their world and has an influence. This is due, in part, to the fact that McCandless accepts invitations to address these folks, even though they shouldn’t be emulating his work. When he does, he doesn’t point out that they shouldn’t follow his lead. He talks about the beauty of information and demonstrates how much fun it is to play with data without any particular end in mind beyond the pure joy of the experience. The people whose interests that I serve find this disheartening and frustrating. When their bosses ask for silly charts that look like those that McCandless’ displayed, they beat their heads against the wall. This could all be resolved if McCandless would clearly state what he does and then caution people who visualize data for other purposes from following his lead. Unfortunately, he doesn’t.

Do I fail to appreciate McCandless’ innovations? The answer to this is that I am not aware of any useful innovations that have been produced by McCandless. He does not engage in experimentation in the scientific sense. He does not put hypotheses to the test. He plays with data. Mostly, he draws from a limited bag of tricks, many of which have been shown to be ineffective.

Although it is not my primary activity, I engage in data visualization innovation. I’ve introduced several new ways of visualizing data to the world. As a good scientist, however, I don’t waste my time doing things that I know don’t work. That’s not innovation. I identify real problems—things that current data visualization techniques don’t handle or don’t handle well—and then I try to use my knowledge and imagination to find a way to solve that problem in a new way.

If any of you are aware of any useful data visualization innovations that McCandless has produced, please share them with us. If not, then please don’t encourage us to appreciate McCandless’ work because he contributes useful ideas that advance the field of data visualization.

PS: Must mention that McCandless blog is “Information is beautiful”.
If the graphs do not inform, then they are failures, aren’t they?

I would encourage the readers on this thread to read Dave ‘Fab Macca’ McCandless’s response to the Q&A he held on Reddit a few weeks ago. There are responses that hit home on a few of Steve’s points and clarify David’s position.

David does not see himself as a data artist. Here’s one response.

“I still see myself as a journalist. I see a lot of similarities between information design and journalism. Both set about to condense and optimise information into tight, understandable, elegant form, telling stories and helping others to navigate.”

He describes his process:

“I usually consider elements from both the design and content sides. Things like.
Strength of idea / proposition / question, Information & data quality, usefulness, revelation, effectiveness of execution, ease of use, aesthetic beauty, originality, style, creative touch, originality.”

Both of these statements clearly indicate his intent and purpose is to inform people and to share his visualizations with others. He seems to churn out visualizations at incredible speeds.

“I’ve created a lot of data and information visualizations. Around 540 over six years (An eye-bleeding, marriage-crumpling average of 1.7 per week).”

Also, I have had similar experience as Kim has described. I don’t find executives or clients forcing bad design in every case. Certainly I’ve encountered situations where someone’s client or the VP of All Things Circular requests a pie chart or bubble chart, but in many cases, the client or executive is trusting the expert. One of Steve’s points is that they don’t often have an expert on hand to guide them. There is frequently someone who is not trained in best practices, hasn’t read the books or taken a data visualization class and they are finding work online by people like David McCandless and trying to apply it to their real-world scenarios. This can lead to the situations that Steve is describing and that he has encountered in real-world situations.

As I read the comments from Alberto, it sounds like both the students and the non-students were versed in the fundamentals of data visualization, but I’m sure that’s not the case in other places where he speaks. The unfortunate reality is that the online advertising announcing that he was a speaker at the University of Miami could lead others to draw conclusions and make assumptions that Alberto is endorsing his work or methodology.

I am pleased about one thing, that my students at the University of Cincinnati will be able to read this very interesting discussion.

Jeff

Stephen,

I do understand distinctly the problem you outline. We don’t consult nearly to the level you do, but I regularly encounter and work with people who have to do the type of work you’re talking about. In fact, I’ve sung the praises of these practitioners in many of my talks because they are producing work of impact that will never reach more than an insular audience.

However, I still think singling out certain people is misplaced. The scenarios you describe exist in every field. For instance, I used to work in web development. Whenever there was some new crazy site all of our clients would want to copy it. It was annoying, sure. But it was our responsibility to translate what they were responding to and see how we could apply it to their sites, if at all.

It was the same scenario when I went to my stylist once and told her I wanted to look like Angelina Jolie. Unfortunately, she couldn’t stifle her laughter. Does my stylist curse Angelina for making her clients unrealistic? No. She welcomes the opportunity to make them look as good as they can. In fact, most stylists love celebrities who have unobtainable and sometimes unhealthy beauty. It brings them clients.

It’s our job to translate those desires into something suitable.

If, as Jeffrey pointed, David sees himself as
“a journalist. I see a lot of similarities between information design and journalism. Both set about to condense and optimise information into tight, understandable, elegant form, telling stories and helping others to navigate.”

Then, from my perspective, having lookes only a dozen of his visualisation, he fails to make them understandable. I certainly do not navigate easily through them.
If his visualisation are not understandable, like some graphic codes, then they are not really information, and it’s even more important to present counterpoints to his work.

Is data visualization a science? Then, are bad viz practices w.r.t. visualization similar to what homeopathy is to medicine?
If the answer is positive to both questions, then an academic should not give stage to an “homeopathic visualizer”!

The thing is I’m not sure whether I’d answer positively to the questions.

First of all, thank you Stephen for your great blog and passion for data visualisation – it is great to find this kind of debate, ignited by your concerns for how poor data visualisation can have negative effects.

The internal debate I have had about McCandless’ work is this: it was his books that first inspired me to look beyond Excel defaults. I now recognise, from books and blogs like yours, Alberto’s and others, that much of McCandless’ work is ineffective; but nevertheless, it was his work that kicked started me into learning and applying data viz to my work. and I’m sure that this applies to lots others who have read his books or seen his talks.

Hopefully some of them follow our path to learn more, or work with people who do, and go on to be better data vizers. Now I can’t reconcile if this is good? Does the good that comes from more people being inspired to use data viz by McCandless, offset the negative impacts of those who blindly follow McCandless’ designs?

and would Cairo challenging McCandless at his lecture deter McCandless from speaking (and inspiring) and the audience from using data viz? If McCandless was to stop, who could step into his place to be a more worthy and public advocate (Rosling perhaps)?

Cheers Stephen – I hope you get your answers from David M. I’ve forwarded this debate to many of my peers , primarily due to the time and thoughtfulness you’ve taken to respond to everyone’s questions \ opinions

Sawsan,

I’m not a journalist. I’m a teacher. McCandless claims to be a journalist. As such, it his job to inform people about the news. The problem is that he doesn’t do this well. His displays are often difficult to read and inaccurate. Assuming that “offering us a lighthearted sense of data” is a viable journalistic objective, McCandless would still need to present data in an accessible and truthful manner to achieve this objective. The problem is that he doesn’t.

As someone with a vested interest in the public understanding of science, you should be deeply committed to data displays that are accessible and truthful. McCandless’ work conflicts with this interest. When you attend seminars and listen to other scientists present their work, you evaluate its merits. You reject poorly designed and otherwise invalid research and appreciate science that is done well. I evaluate the work of data visualizers. I reject poorly designed data visualizations and appreciate data visualizations that are done well. Would you invite a pseudo-scientist (e.g., an advocate of intelligent design) to present his work in a public venue without providing a counterpoint? I doubt that you would.

Well said, Andrew! The folks who don’t think it is important that the data representation be accurate, first and foremost, must not use data to make important decisions. The accuracy of the data should be the number one concern of any report/visualization.

@jlbriggs:

You mean beauty is subjective? Who knew!

The way I figure, it’s just not worth arguing whether his work is aesthetically pleasing, lest arguments of personal preference plague the more important points of this debate.

I’m trying to argue that McCandless’ graphics are not conducive toward good decision-making. The last thing I want is people telling me that the only reason I say that is because I have a biased *opinion* that his work is “ugly”.

@Andy Cotgreave: “Why should all data be used to always make important decisions?”

Who made that assertion? I feel like you’re responding to a different discussion entirely.

“IF you use data to make important decisions, THEN you should look at it in the most effective and efficient way.”

Agreed – that’s the contrapositive (P->Q, thus !Q->!P) of what Terry suggested – if you don’t care about presenting the data in a way that informs effectively, then you must not be using the data to make important decisions.

Stephen,

First of all again thank you for your incredible dedication to your work. Secondly, thank you for your willingness to offer thoughtful criticism to the data community.

In my position I’ve had the opportunity to see a weekly multi-paged CEO dashboard for my employer (a major US retailer) and contribute a (very) small part to it. I can assure you that McCandless’ influence on the day-to-day operational reporting is zero. Everything consists of bars, lines, Gantt charts, or tables (with various color). Zero packed bubbles. Perhaps McCandless influences some of the publicly available annual reports, but not the operational charts. Something that’s “cute” on day one is aggravating to the user by day three (I believe you have said something similar in the chart-junk debate). In addition, many people are risk-averse and will not deviate from the perceived defaults.

There are however several examples of tool-defaults being propagated to the final CEO dashboard. Luckily this is limited to a few shadows and default color choices. My biggest fear is when the tool-makers get starry-eyed about McCandless’ work and go on to incorporate it within their tool because “it’s cool”, or “someone will use it (maybe for non-important data)”. The tool-makers have a unique position of passing along functional wisdom automatically in the design of their tools.

Ladi,

I’m not sure what McCandless should be called. He is certainly not an expert in data visualization. According to a recent interview, he does not consider his work data art. The only professional title that I’ve seen him use is “journalist,” but what he does isn’t journalism–certainly not good journalism–by any common definition of the term.