The topic of this infographic is interesting, but it could be rendered more effectively. The graphic is basically a bubble chart, not too different from a tag cloud. The size of the basketball represents the number of wins by each of the teams (I assume).
Bubble charts frequently are used as a means of providing additional detail in a graphic. For example, here is a bubble chart from Wikipedia.
The bubbles represent a third dimension of data.
There are several problems with the basketball infographic:
I don’t believe the colors hold any meaning except decoration. I find the colors make my eyes jump all over the graphic. Color variation could have been used to show number of wins in support of meaning.- Size of the balls and size of the font labels are not correlated (I think). To me, the Kings’s ball and the Pistons’s ball look about the same size. Their fonts are different size. I think the font is scaling to make the label fit inside the ball. The Kings’s ball does stand out more as a result of the larger font.
- People are not very good at accurately estimating the difference in size between objects. People are ok at determining which object is larger, if there is enough difference, but they are poor at guessing whether one object is 1/8 bigger than another. For example, how much bigger is the Kings’s ball than the Bullets’s ball.
If you think about it, if you were simply presented with an ordered list: Celtics, Lakers, 76ers, Hawks, etc. (or whatever is accurate – you cannot tell from the graphic), that would provide more information.
Adding the number of wins into the ball would also be a good move. A simple table sorted by wins would also convey more information. You could even add a graphical representation (scaled ball or bar graph) to show the difference between 10,000 wins versus 2,000 wins.
From a statistical perspective, it would be useful to know the source of the data in the graph. Additionally, I believe the franchises have been in existence for differing periods of time. Depending upon what information was being conveyed, you might want to adjust number of wins in proportion to length of existence.
I’d be interested in your thoughts.
[graph from SuperSonicSoul via Hardwood Paroxysm]
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- Infographic - Information graphics or infographics are visual representations of information, data or knowledge.
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now that its done i wonder if its good enough to join the list !"
He did one small mistake, unfortunately everyone does mistakes."
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Neal,
I agree with all of your comments. This graphic raises many more questions than it answers. I believe the colouring was an effort to imitate the team colours (but what's up with Sacramento).
On a side note, why did you change your site font size to such a small font? I know I should have reading glasses but this borders on torture.
Mike H
Thanks for the comment.
@Mike, the font size is not "supposed" to be very small at all. In fact, our goal was to increase the size. Could you tell me a little about browser and local settings so I can figure out, which of our settings are hurting your configurations?
Thanks for the comment.
@Mike, the font size is not "supposed" to be very small at all. In fact, our goal was to increase the size. Could you tell me a little about your browser and local settings so I can figure out, which of our settings are hurting your configurations?
Well it appears that the font sizes were not set up correctly. I've made some quick changes that inevitably have messed up some other things. Mike, thank you so much for bringing this to my attention. We might not have known otherwise. Thanks!!