Given this was posted to the list today, I find it ironical that Jetblue sent me a link to this site today *JetPaws* http://www.jetblue.com/jetpaws/?source=EMJetpawsAnnounce_main&sp_mid=1318246
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 2:52 PM, Jack Moffett <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm in agreement with Will, here. The sparklines on this site don't provide > enough context to be of any use. They raise a lot of questions! > > 1. What is the time-span we are looking at? > > 2. As Will pointed out, they haven't broken out losses, injuries, and > deaths, which are very different things. If you are a pet owner, a death is > final. An injury is likely mendable, and a loss may only be temporary. > > 3. Obviously, a peak represents 1 incident, but each peak covers a certain > span of time. If you look at ATA, which shows 2 incidents in a single peak > with a flat top, and Atlantic Southeast, which shows 1 incident with a > pointed peak, the time-span only differs by 2 pixels. Granted, I don't know > the time scale, but it seems to me the width of a peak is inaccurate in > comparison. > > 4. What does height of a peak represent? Judging by the airlines with only > a few incidents, it has nothing to do with the amount within a single time > unit, as they have full-height peaks. Midwest reports 4 incidents, but there > are only three peaks, two of which are half-height, and one of which is full > height. Then look at Continental with 52 incidents. Its sparkline varies in > height quite a bit. This leads me to believe that height is supposed to > correlate to the number of incidents, but the scale is being changed for > each sparkline to make them fit the given height. If such is the case, no > meaningful comparison can be made between them. They may as well just give > the totals and leave it at that. > > Will Evans said: > >> Agreed, context and scale are important, and breaking out lost, injured, >> killed as three separate information vectors by airline, overtime without >> connecting the information points would have increased information density >> while reducing chart junk. >> > > Actually, Will, chart junk refers to graphics that aren't communicating > data. A sparkline, by definition, is all data. There is no chart junk. So, > breaking out each into a separate vector will increase the information, but > not reduce chart junk. Whether or not it increases information density > depends on how much space is used, of course. If they are overlaid in the > same space, then yes, it would increase data density. > > Best, > Jack > > > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
