I suppose that when I found myself getting excited about Amazon delivering my copy of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte, I should have realised that I have a problem that the book wasn't going to solve. But its made it worse.
I can't stand "infographics."
Now, don't get me wrong; anything that helps communication — especially the communication of complicated information — well, thats a good thing.
And good design, making something attractive and engaging — well, that is a valuable skill.
But the difference between visually representing data and trying to make data interesting by adding eye-catching decorations is becoming something that is increasingly obvious to me. Which means that my own reaction is pretty much the opposite to what is intended. So when I see something like this (via @TomEwing, my mind turns to how the data could have been presented more effectively.
For example, don't use circles to present linear data, don't make it as hard as possible to connect labels with what they are labelling, give some idea about what values are being represented - are the graphics supposed to show audience size, time spent, page views, number of visits? The whole thing, while atractive enough, is just a pretty mess of information.)
Its a bit like research, I suppose. You have the kind of "research" that shows what Britain's favourite washing powder is (or another category where no normal person would say, unless threatened or bribed to say otherwise, that they had a favourite), or that 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskers. On the other hand, you have research that provides insight, reveals hidden truths, helps you to understand people, how they behave, what they think — and why.
Of course, when you have research like that, you don't need to get someone to make it into pretty pictures. Or do you?
Perhaps I should be spending more time with Omnigraffle and Illustrator and less time in Excel…