Infographics are all the rage these days and can be an excellent way to make information easily digestible... providing you've got the information right. Otherwise they're little more than clip art.
Case in point, Channel 4 News has published an infographic to illustrate the fact Argentinian footballer Lionel Messi has broken Gerd Müller's 40 year old goal scoring record of 85 goals in a calendar year.
The infographic shows how Messi's 86 goals compare to Müller's 85. Or does it... a quick bit of adding up would have revealed the goals on the left add up to just 73 and the goals on the right add up to 84:
It's also been pointed out that Müller did not score 13 goals at Euro 72, but rather in all international games that season. He also troubled the goal once in a European Cup Winners Cup match and only scored 12 in the European Cup. If you're interested, Four Four Two have a more accurate version for a story which really was crying out for a good infographic.
I agree, a bunch of infographics these days can just be called clip art cause the data either doesn't make sense or is presented poorly.
It's critical to get this stuff right unless you wanna be embarrassed in the future.
Great post.
Posted by: Sexy Infographics | Dec 13, 2012 at 12:38