Howie’s Helpful Hints l Don’t show the data 1. Show as little data as possible 2. Hide what data you do show l Show the data inaccurately 3. Ignore the visual metaphor 4. Only order matters l Obfuscate the data 5. Change scales mid-axis 6. Emphasise the trivial 7. Jiggle the baseline 8. Austria first! 9. Label illegibly, incompletely, incorrectly 10. Make it 3D! Adapted from Wainer, H. (1997) Visual Revelations. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers,.

Howie’s Helpful Hints 1. Show as little data as possible

Howie’s Helpful Hints 2. Hide what data you do show Source: PhD thesis, Monash University

Howie’s Helpful Hints Clearer version: Greeks in Australia Swedes in Sweden Japanese in Japan Anglo-Celts in Australia Greeks in Greece Relative mortality rate (all causes) Drawn using S-plus

Howie’s Helpful Hints What’s the difference? l Rotated by 90 o – labels fit & can be read l Logarithmic scale – correct for ratio measure l Removed grid lines, background, legend l Ordered categories by response variable l Monochrome emphasises data, not decoration Greeks in Australia Swedes in Sweden Japanese in Japan Anglo-Celts in Australia Greeks in Greece Relative mortality rate (all causes)

Howie’s Helpful Hints 3. Ignore the visual metaphor Source: Tufte E. (2001) The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. 2 nd Ed. Cheshire: Graphics Press

Howie’s Helpful Hints 4. Only order matters Source: Pravda, 24 May Source: Los Angeles Times, 5 August 1979.

Howie’s Helpful Hints 5. Change scales mid-axis Source: Andreasson S et al. Cannabis and schizophrenia. A longitudinal study of Swedish conscripts. Lancet Dec 26;2(8574): A common error, often attributable to use of categorical x -axis, rather than quantitative. More of this later … Drawn using MS Excel

Howie’s Helpful Hints 6. Emphasise the trivial Source: US Bureau of Census. Social Indicators III cited: Wainer H. Visual Revelations (op cit)

Howie’s Helpful Hints 7. Jiggle the baseline Source: Results of 1984 New York Democratic primary election; cited in: Cleveland WS. The Elements of Graphing Data. Monterey: Wadsworth, 1985.

Howie’s Helpful Hints 8. Austria first! Source: US Bureau of Census. Social Indicators III cited: Wainer H. Visual Revelations (op cit) Drawn using Excel only Note the “hatched” axis, ignoring the clear loss of proportionality for bar-lengths

Howie’s Helpful Hints 9. Label illegibly, incompletely, incorrectly Source: Ithaca Times, 7 December 2000 cited: 21 Nov 2002http://

Howie’s Helpful Hints 10. Make it 3D! Source: The Scientist 11[14]:8, Jul. 07, 1997 cited: 21 Nov 2002http:// Proportion of the Total Number of Published Papers By Region in All Fields, Source: Marmot M. From Black to Acheson: two decades of concern with inequalities in health. Int J Epidemiol 2001; 30:

Howie’s Helpful Hints Good 3D & Bad 3D The population of Sweden from by age groups by Luigi Perozzo, from the Annali di Statistica, 1880,