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The post says "There’s absolutely zero non-data ink." The names of the countries are printed twice. As far as data is concerned, one set contains none. The sec
by spodek 15y ago
The post says "There’s absolutely zero non-data ink."
The names of the countries are printed twice. As far as data is concerned, one set contains none. The second printing may help readability, but readability isn't data.
You can tell one set isn't necessary because the cancer graph at the bottom leaves them out of the middle columns.
The bullet point at the bottom "Include both the names of the items and their values on both the left-hand and right-hand axes" could add "If your goal is zero non-data ink or your space is tight, you can leave out one set of names."
- charliepark 15y agoGood point. Thanks for noting that. I'll add that in.
- omaranto 15y agoAlternatively, you could keep the double printing of the names and leave out the lines connecting them, they too are just for readability. Of course, you can't remove both the lines and the second printing of names.
- gwern 15y agoWell, if you remove the lines, you give up any information besides start-end rankings, in which case you might as well just have 2 columns of names next to each other. eg. look at Tufte's cancer survival rate graph, where it's not just a straight line from start-end but multiple segments, each end-point being a fresh dataset, datasets staggered over time.
- omaranto 15y agoI meant erase the lines but keep the placement of the text in the columns, not just the order of the labels, but the actual positions of them, so that you could connect them with lines again if you were so inclined.