Just received this in a message from a journalism grad student studying information graphics:

I have looked at 2 years worth of Glamour (and Harper’s Bazaar too) magazines for my project and it shows that Glamour and other women’s magazines have less amount of information graphics in the magazines compared to men’s magazines, such as GQ and Esquire. Why do you think that is? Do you think that is gender-related at all?

I hadn’t really thought about it much. For the record, my reply:

My fiancée (who knows a lot more about being female than I do) pointed out that such magazines have much less practical content in general, so it may have more to do with that than a specific gender thing. Though she also pointed out that, for instance, in today’s news about the earthquake in China, she felt that women might be more inclined to read a story with the faces of those affected than one with information graphics tallying or describing the same.

I think you’d need to find something closer to a male equivalent of Glamour so that you can cover your question and remove the significant bias you’re getting for the content. Though, uh, a male equivalent of Glamour may not really exist… But perhaps there are better options.

And as I was writing this, she responded:

Finding a male equivalent of Glamour is hard but they actually do have some hard-hitting stories near the back in every issue that sometimes might be overshadowed by all the fashion and beauty stuff. Actually, finding a female equivalent of GQ or Esquire is also hard because they sort of have a niche of their own too. I have to agree with your fiancée too, because, I studied Oprah’s magazines a little in my previous study and sometimes it is really about what appeals to their audience.

Well, my study does not imply causality and it sometimes might be hard to differentiate if the result was due to gender differences or content. So, it’s interesting to find all these out, and actually men’s magazines have about 5 times more information graphics than women’s magazines which is amazing.

Wow—five times more. (At least amongst the magazines that she mentioned.)

My hope in posting this (rather than just sharing the contents of my inbox…can you tell that I’m answering mail today?) is that someone else out there knows more about the subject. Please drop me a line if you do; I’d like to know more and to post a follow-up.

In contrast to the clarity and simplicity of the New York Times info graphic mentioned yesterday, the example currently on their home page is an example of the opposite:

This is helpful because it clarifies the point I tried to make about what was nice about the other graphic. Because of space limitations, this graphic is small, and the information is stored across multiple panels. So at the top there are a pair of tabs. Then within the tabs we have a pair of buttons. Two tabs, four buttons, just to get through four possible pieces of data. That’s the sort of combinatoric magic we see in Microsoft Windows preference panels:

While the organization in the info graphic makes conceptual sense—first you must choose one of two states, then choose one of the candidates—it makes little cognitive sense. We’re choosing between one of four options. Just give them to us! For a pair of items beneath another pair of items, there’s no need to establish a sense of hierarchy. If there were a half dozen states, and a half dozen candidates, then that might make sense. Just because the data is technically hierarchic, or arranged in a tree, that doesn’t mean that it’s the best representation for it.

The solution? Just give us the four options. No sliding panels, trap doors, etc. Better yet, superimpose the Clinton and Obama data on a single map as different colors, and have a pair of buttons (not tabs!) that let the viewer quickly swap between Indiana and North Carolina.

(This only covers the interaction model, without getting into the way the data itself is presented, colors chosen, laid out, etc. The lack of population density information in the image makes the maps themselves nearly worthless.)

I like neither bacon nor these machines, so I wish they would always provide this helpful explanation (or warning).

Comparing the number of Starbucks and Wal-Marts per capita across the United States (the lower 48 at least).

Read more Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science from Andrew Gelman’s lab at Columbia.

(thx, jason)

Given the number of data points provided, it would be difficult to refute the findings depicted in this chart.

Related work can be found here and here. While later research findings (by latecomers who foolishly claim to have invented the approach) here and here.

Thanks to Raelynn Miles for the original link.

Beautiful info graphic from a September 2007 article about the restoration of the Guggenheim, depicting the cracks in the concrete walls. From the image:

Since the Guggenheim Museum opened in 1959, Frank Lloyd Wright’s massive spiral facade has been showing signs of cracking, mainly from seasonal temperature fluctuations that caus the concrete walls, built without expansion joints, to contract and expand.

The image is partly striking for the contrast between the NYT-style geometric graphic and pale colors mixed with the organic shape of the cracks. Wonderful.

Sent from one of my former students at CMU (you know who you are, drop me a line if it was you…I’ve lost the original message!)