Andrew Gelman is the Director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University and is one of the most respected data scientists in the field.
He's penned a number of texts that have gone on to become classics.
He — with former Harvard Statistics Department Chair Donald Rubin— wrote the definitive academic text on Bayesian Analysis.
Gelman also wrote the political statistics book Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State, another must-read.
In short, Gelman knows quite a bit about data visualization. He and Dr. Antony Unwin from the University of Augsburg collaborated on this presentation where they take a hard look at what's wrong with the recent trends of data visualization and infographics.
The takeaway is that while there have been great leaps in visualization technology, some of the visualizations that have garnered the highest praises have actually been lacking in a number of key areas.
Specifically, the pair does a takedown of the top visualizations of 2008 as decided by the popular statistics blog Flowing Data.
The pair wrote an in-depth article and a followup giving great details and insight on the status of infographics, but this slideshow is a must read for anyone who is interested in the future of data visualization.
Good infographics balance fulfilling dual goals of communication and discovery — they have to communicate data clearly and also encourage exploration
Here's an example of a good infographic — it's compelling, enables discovery, communicates a point...
...and is much, much more visually compelling than a simple scatterplot.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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