Bella consults

My friend Chiara has sent me a graph about car colors and color as an attribute. From the German newspaper “Nürnberger Nachrichten”. It’s about the temperature dogs have to endure when in summer they have to wait in a car. Definitely too hot. A special case of small multiples. It emphasizes the differences in varnish variants. Sad: the temperature is hard to read. Red needle on a red scale. Tiny marks. Uff. And each gauge uses much too much space. Numbers would’ve been much better. Directly on the varnish.

Colors could have been sorted from left to right according to temperature. White, red, blue. Interesting: the cool blue is much warmer than the hot red. I rate this graph A‑.

Temperature comparison of varnish colors.

Great. German marriages are increasingly stable. Even better: the graph in the German newspaper „Welt am Sonntag (WamS)“. It’s creator also lives in the deaf dog area. That’s where you are immune against any kind of chartjunk. No coloring of areas with confusing legends. No 3D-bars. Neither a church, nor a wedding dress or an attorney’s robe as decoration. Germany is flat. No pseudo-pie floating in outer space. The map achieves its goal. We learn about divorce rates in the south, north, east and west, the larger states and the city states of Hamburg, Bremen, Berlin. Without unnecessary digits. Per 100 marriages. That’s a self-explaining basis.

A small dot and a name, Neustrelitz, the only location which is addressed in the accompanying text. Marriages are most stable in Neustrelitz. Only 8.5 divorces per 1000 residents.

All state borders as clear as necessary while as thin as possible. A thin, narrow spaced font for compact labels. Finally, a small visual goody in the headline.

A graph without any chartjunk