Talk:Small multiple

Actually, Edward Tufte discussed small multiples in the Visual Display of Quantitative Information, which was published years earlier than Envisioning Information.Graphexpert (talk) 15:18, 17 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The purpose of the example is dubious. Is it intended to explain the concept of small multiples, or to be a lesson in how to poorly employ the concept? It is at least as effective (and likely more so) at the latter as it is the former. Mrweatherbee (talk) 20:42, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please explain. --Knulclunk (talk) 21:23, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The contributor states that the chart purpose is to "emphasize the relative change over time compared to the range," but the purpose of small multiples, namely to exploit repetition, is frustrated by the varying scales. Since the scales all differ, both in starting values and min-max range, a viewer must discretely determine the range of each individual plot, which makes it impossible to visually make a relative comparison among the various plots. The contributor's proposal to standardize the scales would help. In Tufte's words, there is insufficient "constancy of design." Mrweatherbee (talk) 18:00, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Remember Tufte's concepts other concepts regarding visual display of data. The "lie factor" comes to mind.... Source:"The Visual Display of Quantitative Information", "Lie Factor" defined on page 57. The premise is essentially people use graphic representations to mis lead / misinform about the data. Scale is one of the easiest ways to do that. When agency x spends 2.5 more than agency y they might be graphed at a difference of 6x or 1.5 x.. either way distorts and lies to the user...

The small multiple example does the same... all of the charts are not to the same scale, although visually they are the same size.....

Here are a few examples:

http://www.revolutionarytennis.com/Rev%20Tennis/download/s12-3toss.pdf http://37signals.com/svn/posts/266-using-small-multiples-to-get-to-aha

always one of my favorites...

http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/images/0001OS-1067.gif

https://medium.com/@robsimmon/multiple-small-multiples-a10edc529a9b This article gives some good examples of Small Multiples from the 2016 Information is Beautiful Awards - they look good, and it would be good to have multiple (and modern) examples. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.182.150.40 (talk) 04:42, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]