Why you should never trust a data visualisation | News. First of all, let me be clear: the headline of this article is a reference to Pete Warden's post, and should be read in the same way - as a caution against blind acceptance, rather than the wholesale condemnation of data visualisation. An excellent blogpost has been receiving a lot of attention over the last week. Pete Warden, an experienced data scientist and author for O'Reilly on all things data, writes: The wonderful thing about being a data scientist is that I get all of the credibility of genuine science, with none of the irritating peer review or reproducibility worries ...
I thought I was publishing an entertaining view of some data I'd extracted, but it was treated like a scientific study. This is an important acknowledgement of a very real problem, but in my view Warden has the wrong target in his crosshairs. But there is: humans are visual creatures. What am I doing about it? Ultimately, I believe the solution is a two-way street. Where do you sit on this debate? Why you should never trust a data scientist. Photo by Jesse Means The wonderful thing about being a data scientist is that I get all of the credibility of genuine science, with none of the irritating peer review or reproducibility worries. My first taste of this was my Facebook friends connection map. The underlying data was sound, derived from 220m public profiles. The network visualization of drawing lines between the top ten links for each city had issues, but was defensible. I’ve enjoyed publishing a lot of data-driven stories since then, but I’ve never ceased to be disturbed at how the inclusion of numbers and the mention of large data sets numbs criticism.
Why are data scientists getting all the attention? What am I doing about it? What should you do? Like this: Like Loading... David McCandless: The beauty of data visualization. Information Is Beautiful. Battle of the Sexes - Hoe Men And Women Use The Social Web. 10 Traits of Amazingly Awesome Infographics. Honestly, who doesn't love infographics? They're informative, visually stimulating, and they allow you to easily digest a ton of information quickly. What this usually results in for marketers is a high rate of social sharing that generates a lot of web traffic and precious inbound links to increase SEO.
That is, if they're created effectively... But truthfully, not all infographics are such big hits. In fact, there are quite a few factors that contribute to whether an infographic is a huge success ...or a total flop. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Want some more examples of effective infographics? Have you ever created an infographic for your business?