4 ms·

I love that automobile visualization featured at the top, because it seems so promising, only to become increasingly disappointing as you try harder and harder

by chipsy 16y ago

I love that automobile visualization featured at the top, because it seems so promising, only to become increasingly disappointing as you try harder and harder to make sense of it. The low performance only makes matters worse.

Herring 16y ago
The biggest problem is it's best read right to left.
- jpr 16y ago
  Another problem is that the "acceleration" slot actually describes the opposite of what one would think.
- jleader 16y ago
  There's also an odd reversal near the middle; number of cylinders is roughly correlated w/ displacement, which is roughly correlated w/ weight, which is roughly correlated w/ horsepower, which is roughly... oops, inversely correlated w/ 0-60 acceleration time. Hence the lines looking like they got twisted in a bunch between the horsepower axis and the acceleration axis. I think interaction is a very under-utilized aspect of visualization; if that car visualization hadn't had such abysmal performance, being able to play with it might have been very informative. I think interaction is more powerful than time (but probably harder to design effectively). As it was, I noticed several interesting new (to me) points: - Quantization of number of cylinders is obvious, but I didn't expect displacement turn out to be so quantized - The highest acceleration cars didn't have the worst fuel efficiency - The oldest cars (1970) appeared to include the ones with the worst fuel efficiency. I've been trying to figure out a better way of laying out the weight/horsepower/acceleration axes, given that weight*acceleration=horsepower (with the addition of some noise due to different measurement techniques, etc.)
  - Herring 16y ago
    Well you're gonna have that twist anyway, unless you flip a couple columns. I sort of prefer having it in the middle. But then i didn't really mind the visualization so maybe I'm the wrong person to ask.

by chipsy 16y ago

Herring 16y ago

The biggest problem is it's best read right to left.

jpr 16y ago
Another problem is that the "acceleration" slot actually describes the opposite of what one would think.
jleader 16y ago
There's also an odd reversal near the middle; number of cylinders is roughly correlated w/ displacement, which is roughly correlated w/ weight, which is roughly correlated w/ horsepower, which is roughly... oops, inversely correlated w/ 0-60 acceleration time. Hence the lines looking like they got twisted in a bunch between the horsepower axis and the acceleration axis. I think interaction is a very under-utilized aspect of visualization; if that car visualization hadn't had such abysmal performance, being able to play with it might have been very informative. I think interaction is more powerful than time (but probably harder to design effectively). As it was, I noticed several interesting new (to me) points: - Quantization of number of cylinders is obvious, but I didn't expect displacement turn out to be so quantized - The highest acceleration cars didn't have the worst fuel efficiency - The oldest cars (1970) appeared to include the ones with the worst fuel efficiency. I've been trying to figure out a better way of laying out the weight/horsepower/acceleration axes, given that weight*acceleration=horsepower (with the addition of some noise due to different measurement techniques, etc.)
- Herring 16y ago
  Well you're gonna have that twist anyway, unless you flip a couple columns. I sort of prefer having it in the middle. But then i didn't really mind the visualization so maybe I'm the wrong person to ask.