Corequisite Support Activity for 5.C: Interrogating and Critiquing Complex Visual Displays

What you’ll need to Know:

In this support activity you’ll become familiar with the following:

  • Recognize when a graph includes a missing component.

In the next preview assignment and in the next class, you will need to identify evidence of five criteria of good graphical displays. Displays that are missing one or more of these criteria can be misleading. In this activity, you’ll prepare to recognize a misleading graph by learning to identify missing or poorly executed display components.

Misleading Graphs

Misleading graphs are sometimes created to intentionally misrepresent the data. This is usually done in order to focus a reader’s attention on a specific trend or pattern. In this corequisite support activity, we will learn about a few different ways a graph can be presented with a missing component or be incorrectly created.

Missing Components

Sometimes, a graph may be created with a missing component that causes a misrepresentation of the data. When the graph is corrected by including the missing piece, a very different perspective usually emerges.

Work with a partner to explore examples of missing display components by answering Questions 1 – 5 .

Question 1

Looking at the following bar graph,[1] at first glance, what seems true about the average house prices between 1998 and 1999?

A bar graph labeled "Massive increase in house prices this year." The x-axis is labeled Year and the y-axis is labeled average house price ($). The x-axis has one bar labeled 1998 and another labeled 1999. The y-axis is labeled in increments of 1000 starting at 80000 and going up to 82000. For 1998, the bar reaches us to 80000. For 1999, the bar reaches up to 82000.

You can see from Question 1 that it is important to always check the scale of a graph before inferring any message that could lead us to misinterpret the data displayed within it. All the data for prices from $0 to $79,000 was missing from the graph in Question 1.

Question 2

Use the following grid to create a sketch of a corrected bar graph for the average house prices for 1998 and 1999. Recall the bar graphs you’ve see previously in the course (such as in the section Displaying Categorical Data in Module 2) for the appropriate value to start the scale of the y-axis.

A grid

The graph you drew for average house prices in Question 2 likely presented a much more reasonable picture of the real situation. The graph’s scale should always be checked to see if it communicates misleading information.

example

What key components should be present in a graph?

Other graphs may be missing key elements of a graphical display altogether.  See Questions 3 – 5 for an example.

Question 3

What is missing from the following line plot?[2]

A graph titled "Planned Parenthood Federation of America: Abortions Up - Life-Saving Procedures Down." At the bottom, there is a horizontal axis labeled in increments of one from 2006 to 2013. On the graph, there is a pink line labeled "Cancer screening and prevention services" that has goes downwards and there is a red line labeled "Abortions" that goes upwards and crosses the pink line. The pink line is labeled "2,007,371 in 2006" on the left side and "835,573 in 2013" on the right side. The red line is labeled "289,750 in 2006" on the left side and "327,000 in 2013" on the right side.

question 4

What are some possible implications for how data could be misinterpreted if there is no y-axis on the graph?

question 5

The graph from Question 3 was re-created using the data from Planned Parenthood’s annual reports. The following is the new graph.[3]

A graph titled "Planned Parenthood services. Beneath the title is a legend that shows the red line is for abortion procedures and the blue line is for cancer screening and preventative services. The horizontal axis of the graph is labeled by increments of one from '06 to '13. The y-axis is labeled in half millions, from 0 to 2.5 million. On the graph, the blue line starts at approximately 2 million on the y-axis in 2006 and drops to approximately 1 million by 2013. The red line begins in 2006 at approximately 0.3 million and ends at approximately 0.35 million in 2013.

Part A: What missing component was added to the graph?

 

Part B: Compare the information communicated in the graph in Question 3 to the information communicated in the re-created graph in Question 5.

 Color

It is important to use good design principles when using color to communicate information. You’ll learn more about the principles of design specific to graphical displays of data in the course material for this section. For now, see Question 6 for an example of an incorrect use of color in a display.

Question 6

The use of color in a graph can be used inappropriately and can potentially lead to the misinterpretation of a graph. For Parts A and B, refer to the following graph[4] showing information about the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus around the world.

A map titled "Coronavirus around the world." Beneath the title, it says "The outbreak began in China and has infected over 1.8 million people, leaving over 100,000 dead. More than 200 countries have reported isolated cases." At the bottom, there is a legend for Confirmed Cases. "1-10" is a grayish red color, "10-100" is a slightly brighter red, "100-1K" is a vibrant right, "1K-10K" is an even more neon red, "10K-100K" is a darker red, and "100K+" is an even darker red. Additionally, there is a nearby heading that reads "Total Confirmed Cases" above a red bar that has the umber 1,860,011 at the end of it. Beneath that is another heading reading "Total Deaths" above a yellow bar that has the number 114,983 at the end of it, and there is a last heading that reads "Total Recovered" above a green bar with the number 438,516 at the end of it. Nearly all of the countries on the map are some form of red from the legend, except for a few that are simply gray.

Part A: What do you notice about the colors on the graph?

 

Part B: Would you change the color palette used for this graph? If so, what colors would you use in the color palette of the legend?

Hopefully, you are starting to understand how graphical displays can be used to deliberately mislead, as well as how an incorrect use of design principles can make it difficult for the audience to understand what information the designer wishes to communicate. Move on to the course section now, where you will learn to identify evidence of key design criteria in graphical displays.

  1. Top Drawer Teachers. (n.d.). Misleading scales. https://topdrawer.aamt.edu.au/Statistics/Misunderstandings/Misleading-graphs/Misleading-scales ↵
  2. Collins, K. (2016, March 13). The most misleading charts of 2015, fixed. Quartz. https://qz.com/580859/the-most-misleading-charts-of-2015-fixed/ ↵
  3. Collins, K. (2016, March 13). The most misleading charts of 2015, fixed. Quartz. https://qz.com/580859/the-most-misleading-charts-of-2015-fixed/ ↵
  4. McCready, R. (2020, April 17). 5 ways writers use misleading graphs to manipulate you [Infographic]. Venngage. https://venngage.com/blog/misleading-graphs/ ↵