These waffle charts from The Economist sparked some interesting discussion on Twitter in response to Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic.
A Google spreadsheet with the (super simple) data can be found here. The workbook is public, so anyone with the link can view (and download the data in their spreadsheet application of choice for their own use).
What do you think – are they effective? Post your thoughts and remakes here!
The waffles are an attempt to add visual interest to numbers that aren’t very informative. Bars would look cleaner but maybe also don’t make a lot of sense, because nobody’s asking, “which is higher: the percentage of Syrian teens who don’t go out after dark or the rate who do no activities outside of school?”
These numbers (and the article) suggest that Syrian teens lead shuttered lives, but context in the form of survey results with teens in other countries could make these graphics much better.
Jeff hits the head on the nail: The graphics invite the wrong comparisons, and you’re forced to benchmark each statistic against each other (which is foolish), or against your own preconceptions of what you thought life was like for a Syrian teenager (which is… ok I guess, but expects a bit too much from a typical reader).
If you want to document the impact of the war, you could compare to:
-A teenager in a developed country, like the US.
-A teenager in another middle eastern country, less impacted by war (Saudi Arabia?)
-A Syrian teenager, before the civil war
Or maybe you want to look at the impact on teens specifically, in which case you could compare to Syrians over 30?
In the original, the dots are so close together that I see stars in between. I redesigned giving a bit more space and with a “have your waffle and eat it to” approach, showing the bars next to them.