The worst graph?
I think this may be the worst graph I have ever seen. (In an email newsletter for ABI Research on "wearables".)
Literally, everything has something wrong with it.
- Weird 3d perspective makes it very difficult to compare the height of each "line".
- ...which is compounded by the lack of any lablel on the vertical axis. What is the point of a graph that doesn't communicate the numbers? UNless its just to try to get an idea of the trends...
- Horizontal scale: 1st data point seems to be a full year, subsequent 4 data points are quarterly? So you can't properly see the trends...
- Those shadows are a) too dark, and b) make it harder to read the labels.
- Why is iOS on the list, when they haven't launched a product? Why not include Windows Watches, or ZX Spectrum watches? (And what makes "iOS" different to "proprietary"?)
- OK, lets say that for some reason you have to have an empty iOS bar in the chart. Fine. Why not put it at the end, so it doesn't get confused with the space that separates out each group of bars?
- What order are they even in, anyway? Its not any kind of size order, or iOS wouldn't be second. It isn't alphabetical.
- Of all the bars, there are clearly two significant ones. But - and this may be my colourblindness kicking in, which may be a little unfair - couldn't they have made those two the least similar colours, rather than the most?
You have to spend so long looking at this chart to get any idea of the information it is presumably trying to convey that I can't even believe that it isn't deliberate. (Clearly, the actual numbers are being deliberately obfuscated — something that you have to pay for to access. But if the point isn't to convey that information in some way, then what is the point?)