Infographics aren't just pretty pictures
What does the below company (Thames Water) seem to be spending the most on?
![](/img/thames-water-infographic-edit.jpg)
Click to see the actual numbers.
Looking at the area of the shapes in the visualisation suggests the following order:
- Day to day running
- Building for the future
- Financing cost
With probably 10-15% more on 'Day to day running' than 'Building for the future'.
Look at the numbers and it's actually:
- Building for the future 46%
- Day to day running 30%
- Financing cost 22%
So while it was visually 10-20% bigger, 'Day to Day Running' represented 50% less of the real total than 'Building for the Future'! An accurate visual representation would be the below:
The problem is that the pie chart system, where a category that takes 50% of the whole gets 180o degrees and therefore 50% of the area, has been misapplied to non-circular shape. The distortion affects the categories that sit in the non-circular area:
![](/img/distortion.png)
So about 30% of the infographic wasn't information, but noise.
Designers: infographics aren't just there to look pretty: they are there to communicate. Double-check that the message you're sending fits the data!