The Infinite Dial

I admit it--sometimes Edison's research presentations are not as 'visually arresting' as they could be. We have been using the same IBM/Lotus software to make our data graphs for over 13 years, primarily because it is the easiest software we have found to make clear, data-rich graphs (that doesn't require 20 people in our office to buy, install and learn Illustrator.) Powerpoint, for our purposes, has historically been terrible at making all but the simplest representations of data (ask Edward Tufte about the tyranny of PowerPoint's AutoContent Wizard!) and our initial explorations of the new version aren't much better.

My biggest pet peeve--gratuitous three-dimensional presentation of two-dimensional data. Another impediment to clear understanding of data is the graphing equivalent of 'Mystery Meat Navigation,' charts made from non-standard shapes that make it difficult to mentally calibrate and judge data relationships. Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed Anil Dash's Pixels Are The New Pies. I saw the Wired graphs in the magazine this month, and was tickled to see Anil's keen dissection of these mystery meat graphs. As art, they are visually arresting. As a means to visually present quantitative information--they are visually arresting.

So, now you know why Edison's graphs continue to be prosaic, aggressively two-dimensional, and screamin-out-of-Windows-98-gorgeous.