Bella consults

The day before yesterday Rolf and I raged again. We took apart annual reports of large corporate groups. We made fun of tachometers. We showed how charts lie. We established rules. We defined standards. Some of the rules are in the example. Time runs from left to right. Only structure is shown top-down. We don’t use funny patterns. We label directly. We never label twice. We avoid legends and scales.

Charts show profits (Gewinne) of TUI AG, a major German company for tourism (Touristik, red), shipping (Schifffahrt, blue), and logistics.

The eye cannot sort colors into a ranking. It only works with hues. That is why most colored graphs are hard to read. Hue needs a continuous measure (€, cm, km/h, etc.). Normally. An exception: in the German newspaper “Welt am Sonntag”.

Source: Welt am Sonntag, 2008–03–16, p. 6.

The strength of the new left-wing party in Germany is a discrete measure (Governing party, second most party, etc.). Still the idea of hues works. Great. Apart from that: beautiful Bavaria. The states to the right (”Sonntagsfrage Landtagswahl”, opinion poll for state elections) should be sorted. According to the share of the left-wing party.