Bella consults

I’m in France. The water bill has a chart. The chart is all right. Consumption is displayed compared to the years before. The EU wants it that way since May 2008 (Directive 2006/32/EG, PDF). Already in 2006 the EU said: The energy companies have to bill in an “informative way”. The real prices have to be displayed. And the real energy consumption. Also “Comparisons of the final customer’s current energy consumption with consumption for the same period in the previous year, preferably in graphic form” are needed.

Source: mine

So what’s the conclusion for a European dog?

1. If you like your customers you give them the possibility to compare by themselves. Before the EU tells you to do so. Customers like that. Even when they recognize that they have consumed more.
2. In times of crisis the government feels strong. It will dictate many regulations: who shows whom what to do and how to do it. I still don’t believe the state is a better manager. Nor that the state is a good graphic designer. So, a smart dog takes matters into her own hands.

One of my rules: Graphs must be good to read. Good means fast and clear. That applies to all measuring instruments. For watches, too.

Classical watches are beautiful because they are mechanical. They show all values with analog scales. Not good for readability. But nothing else worked. So far. This watch breaks the rules. The stop function looks digital but works with a mechanic drive. That’s new and difficult to produce. Grand complication. You need 800 individual parts and 4 barrels to build it.

The Porsche Design INDICATOR (P’6910) with a mechanical digital stop function display –
click for movie

The stop function is much better readable. Better than with individual indicators for hours, minutes, seconds and tenths of seconds. I see: ANALOG WAS NOT THE CONSEQUENCE OF MISSING READABILITY BUT A CONSEQUENCE OF THE MECHANICS.

However, I like clocks with analog indicators. But not in controlling. There, indicators remain old and stupid.

Apropos competent with media. Leo from the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) got width, height and position. But that doesn’t mean anything. The 100 % value can be at the top middle, bottom middle or in the middle right. No meaning.

Source: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2009–04–29, p. 31. The red dots are labeled with the names of the most important shareholdings of BayernLB (Bank of the state of Bavaria) and with the percentage held by BayernLB. The article suspects that some of them may be sold. Click to enlarge.

Same issue: The annual average temperature is rising, I thought. Not the temperature is rising but each year. Not cold at the bottom but 1901. At the top it’s pretty warm but above all 2008. The temperature is next to the year. But no clue what it was like in other years. This chart stinks.

Source: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2009–04–29, p. 6. On the vertical scale: the 10 warmest years in Germany since 1901, the long-time average is 8.2 degree Celsius. Click to enlarge.

That makes me sad. The journalists of the Süddeutsche Zeitung do a good job. But who believes in good research with such bad drawings?

Frustrated, I turned to watch television. No help either. The TV guide, “TV Today”, was from last week. The charts were as bad as in Süddeutsche Zeitung. But not even worse. Oh my goodness.

Source: TV Today, 2009–04–11, p. 4. TV consumption in 2007 and 2008 in minutes on easter holidays (green) and average for the whole year (red).

It’s the school’s fault. They say so. But not here: most information designers create junk charts when using areas. In 7th grade kids learn how it is right and wrong. It makes them competent with media.

Lambacher Schweizer: Mathematik für Gymnasien 7, p. 122. (click for translation)

Teachers have their book with solutions. On page 81 it says:

left: essentially a column chart – one car symbol represents 10,000 cars; reasonable
right: length and height increase by 66 %; perception is distorted, because the area is doubled

Now, I wish more competent media to all kids competent with media.

Johannes Kreidler gives time series a sound. I have done that two years ago. In fact, I copied it from him*.

I guess Johannes wants to make fun of the crisis. Businesses take this very seriously. Your human ear is a lot faster than your eye. The eyes see what the ears have already heard. Such as a ranking with one high, some middle and a lot of small values. A very characteristic sound pattern. Possibly irritating. But that is good. You think about it.

This is the sound of some of the data from his video without fun:

Lehman Brothers

General Motors

Microsoft

My old sparklines with new data:

Click on the speaker symbol to hear the crisis.

* Source: Bissantz, Nicolas: Innovative Produkte: DeltaMiner. In: WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK 43 (2001) 1, p. 77–80.

The journal CHIP from Munich tells:

“Truly, in supermarkets they put beer and diapers side by side.”

That’s Data Mining. Because: There are young men. Young women have sent them. They forgot to buy diapers. The men are bored with it and take a beer. Wal Mart knew that for long. And moved beer to the diapers. And made a fortune.

I don’t get it. Beer and diapers sold together. Before they stood together. Why now together? Earning money only with beer and diapers? Why not beer in every shelf? What do women do now? How do they find diapers?

He says (and he has won again, because of Data Mining) that it’s all a lie, CHIP is hallucinating. Then I explored a supermarket in Nuremberg.

In this supermarket (Aldi) beer and diapers are placed together. Because of Data Mining?

Aha. In fact beer and diapers are located just opposite each other. Bicycles and toothbrushes, too. Then to the next supermarket. There it is 23 meters from diapers to beer. I wanted to take a photo. But I was thrown out.

Then I asked him. He says: Data Mining is about relations in shopping baskets. But that doesn’t tell anything about placement. Some things bought together are better placed far away from each other. People then pass by lots of things which they might want to buy, too.

That sounds good: a bicycle for example.

Good news: more read Bella, less Germany’s boulevard newspaper Bild. The German journal Spiegel seems happy, too. So much, that –24 % is steeper than –31 %. I painted how it should look like (click to enlarge)

Der Spiegel, No. 10, 2009–03–02, p. 87

I like the German journal Auto Motor Sport. First I liked the chart from Thursday (6/2009, p. 130), too. Then it felt strange: arrows for security at Mercedes and quality at Opel indicate nearly identical relative changes (-26 % and –25%). But they are so different. I painted them correctly in orange. I used 45° degrees for a change of 100 %.

I fear for the designer. He won’t get a job with Daimler. Although with Opel. But they don’t have any. And Toyota’s Ninjas are on his heels.

In case he survives: arrows are reserved for trends. What was in 2006, 2007, 2008? And: all arrows seem to start from the same level. But that is not true. I offer 5 $ compensation for this wreck.

I visited my friend Namib. He lives at the Epupa falls. They are in the North of Namibia, on the border to Angola. At day he tends goats. In the evenings he thinks about visualization.

Bella, symbols are for worse, you say. That is why we create them as analog as possible. You cannot misinterpret:

Our design is pure, organic and as close to the object as possible. Left: marks for road workers. Middle: a signal, that this Himba village does not welcome visitors. Right: sign for a tire repair station.

We adhere to your Bella Reporting Standards and label directly, without decoration:

Understanding outplays beauty:

Sincerely, your Namib

German newspaper “Die Welt” doesn’t know about tickers. Correct: information passes by your eyes. Very comfortable. Especially, if information otherwise had not enough room for display.

Wrong: The reader passes by the information. Perhaps you know a dumb dog. Who can pass the newspaper by your eyes.

Source: Die Welt, 2008–08–01, p. 21, click for a longer version

Here another broad jump for your eyes.

At November 18th I received this email. Unasked. They cannot blame Excel’s diagram wizard for that. It likes to chop axes. But not always. And not with this data.

Legends are mostly unnecessary. Instead: right to the data. Look, here it’s for Dollar and percentage signs. And for scale infos.

Source: Wall Street Journal, 2006–11–21, p. C4

Also unnecessary: repetitions. Once a Dollar sign and once a percentage sign is enough.

You can reduce skillfully: 2000, 02, 03 etc.

Reference lines may actually help. If they visually increase the relative deviations. That’s what they do in the middle graph.

On November 18th msn news asks me: „How good do you score in the PISA-Test?“ I click and answer questions on caries, evolution and earth rotation. My brain hurts. Poor students.

After wind turbines and marble splints in vinegar: question 6 on Windows, question 7 on Word. At the end antibiotics and dancing bees. 2 out of 9 questions on Microsoft. Peesa in Amerieca? Dear Microsoft, did you cheat?

Question 6 in the German msn PISA test: Does PISA ask for Windows?

A German one without Microsoft here. I got 16.

Obama times: Yes, we draw. Bars as long as they just are. No problem at all in Obama country:

The Wall Street Journal paints them over the whole page (click for complete view).

In the German newspaper Die Welt, flashes hit the charts (left: original, right: me). The flash makes the chart go absurd. A table would be better. On the right I drew a correct one.

Wall Street Journal, 2006–11–21, p. C4; Die Welt, 2008–08–13, p. 26.

Symbols are difficult. In most cases they don’t work out. Some of them have to be learnt. It takes longer than reading something you already know – e.g. a word.

Awkward symbols make me sad. The arrow is at the beautiful river Saone, in beautiful Burgundy:

Source: me

Should you follow the arrow?
Do you have to follow the arrow?
Are you allowed to, if you are careful?

And here from the magazine “Der Spiegel” – oh boy:

Source: Der Spiegel 29/2008, 2008–07–21, p. 65

Oh boy, because: Americans are rigorous with everything concerning their flag.
For instance: whoever wants to be president needs to wear it on the revers.
Always.
I don’t think that the editors of Der Spiegel are still allowed to enter the US.
Even my flag looks best non-shrinked and non-stretched.

And that:

Source: Wirtschaftswoche 27, 2008–06–30, p. 104

From now on: whenever we see three stars we know they will be part of the stock index DAX, soon.
One means: probably not.
Says the German magazine “Wirtschaftswoche”.
I am not sure.
Will that be accepted?

I believe for most symbols the rule is:
Entrance prohibited.