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I don't quite get the bargraph. So it's charting the price of everything relative to the most expensive item in the ticket? What happens if I buy a $100 bottl

I don't quite get the bargraph. So it's charting the price of everything relative to the most expensive item in the ticket? What happens if I buy a $100 bottle of wine and the rest is small priced cheeses and vegetables for a party? It becomes useless.

Panini_Jones 7y ago
I'm actually not certain what behavior it's meant to incentivize in the 'useful' case.
- busterarm 7y ago
  As someone who worked as a supermarket cashier while in high school, having items come up on the receipt in the same order that you scanned them is incredibly necessary when sorting out customer issues. Between that and changes in perception about spending, I'm certain that supermarkets would not want this. It's too pro-consumer for their bottom-line.
arkades 7y ago
> What happens if I buy a $100 bottle of wine and the rest is small priced cheeses and vegetables for a party? It becomes useless. Do you find this an everyday event?
- joezydeco 7y ago
  No, just an outlier example. A way to show that graphing things like this would make Tufte's teeth grind.
pwinnski 7y ago
It seems that the wine(s) would be grouped together and the cheeses would be grouped together, possible with the veggies and possibly not. So the price disparity between a $100 bottle of wine and a $13 bottle of wine would be apparent, but it wouldn't affect the relative bars for the cheese or veggies.
retSava 7y ago
> So it's charting the price of everything relative to the most expensive item in the ticket? It seems so. > What happens if I buy a $100 bottle of wine and the rest is small priced cheeses and vegetables for a party? It becomes useless. Sounds like an atypical every-day purchase for most people, and not what this is optimized for.
neogodless 7y ago
The article and photos show that relative prices are shown within categories. So it could be that your less expensive alcohol purchases seem insignificant, but each other category still visually demonstrates useful comparisons. (But that's an option; they might show the relative bar graph across categories, making it potentially less useful. Except for the original question... How did I spend $180? Oh! $100 wine bottle!) ETA: OK you're right - in the example they show, the prices are relative across categories. Not sure if A/B testing could be done to figure out which way is better!

Panini_Jones 7y ago

I'm actually not certain what behavior it's meant to incentivize in the 'useful' case.

busterarm 7y ago
As someone who worked as a supermarket cashier while in high school, having items come up on the receipt in the same order that you scanned them is incredibly necessary when sorting out customer issues. Between that and changes in perception about spending, I'm certain that supermarkets would not want this. It's too pro-consumer for their bottom-line.

arkades 7y ago

> What happens if I buy a $100 bottle of wine and the rest is small priced cheeses and vegetables for a party? It becomes useless. Do you find this an everyday event?

joezydeco 7y ago
No, just an outlier example. A way to show that graphing things like this would make Tufte's teeth grind.

pwinnski 7y ago

It seems that the wine(s) would be grouped together and the cheeses would be grouped together, possible with the veggies and possibly not. So the price disparity between a $100 bottle of wine and a $13 bottle of wine would be apparent, but it wouldn't affect the relative bars for the cheese or veggies.

retSava 7y ago

> So it's charting the price of everything relative to the most expensive item in the ticket? It seems so. > What happens if I buy a $100 bottle of wine and the rest is small priced cheeses and vegetables for a party? It becomes useless. Sounds like an atypical every-day purchase for most people, and not what this is optimized for.

neogodless 7y ago

The article and photos show that relative prices are shown within categories. So it could be that your less expensive alcohol purchases seem insignificant, but each other category still visually demonstrates useful comparisons. (But that's an option; they might show the relative bar graph across categories, making it potentially less useful. Except for the original question... How did I spend $180? Oh! $100 wine bottle!) ETA: OK you're right - in the example they show, the prices are relative across categories. Not sure if A/B testing could be done to figure out which way is better!