Data Journalism: Graphic Review – Graphic Critique/ Rewrite Exercise

Data Source: https://badvisualisations.tumblr.com/tagged/data%20visualisation The above bar chart is provided to give information about cricket between 2017 and 2017. However, it is a bad bar chart. Probably the author was trying to be different, but he ended up muddling up all the information and making it confusing to understand. 1. Information on the bar chat is not well arranged and presented and this creates a situation where it is very challenging to make sense of the chart as the information is muddled up. 2. Typically, the bar should have been vertical and corresponding with the base, but it is horizontal. This creates visualisation problems for the viewer as it took me a while to actually make sense of it. A standard bar chart should have two perpendicular lines or axes labelled just like number lines. The horizontal line is usually called the X Axis while the vertical line is called the Y axis . Again, there is no defined point of origin due to the structure of the bar chart. 3. Colours serve the purpose of guiding the researcher while viewing a bar chart. However, the use of colour does not distinguish anything in the distribution of the data hence it causes more confusion and is useless. The WKTS and AVE have same colour, making it difficult to identify them. 4. The values do not display a coherent pattern of entry and I wonder what criteria was used. For instance, BHUVNSHAR KUMAR, which is the highest with 29.09 is not presented with the highest bar, rather JASPRIT BUMRAH, which is 14.48. This causes more confusion because it muddles up the data. 5. The assessment period of January 2017 and May 2019 is also confusing and vague. The values start from It is not a round figure or definite number.