Reasons for Challenging Books

wow, SO many more were banned in the 90s than now. is society that much more liberal? the interesting change is that political views are now more taboo. how very fahrenheit 451 of us. http://www.imdb.com/title/t...

Wow, this is horrible. You're comparing 10 years against 5, are you not?

This should be much, much more clear, as my initial impression was the same as sara's here.

Golly gee...I wouldn't go so far as to say it's Horible, comrade. Granted first impressions might be hurried, but if one takes time to collect the context of the graph or the context of anything (data, information, knowledge, etc.) for that matter, their lives may be enriched greatly by the sense of perspective and depth. I suppose that's one of the hardest things for me to contend with here--the consolidation of striking, immediate display and the value of text and context.

Noted: will try to make graphs incredibly explicit. Verrrry explicit. Thanks for the constructive feedback.

I'm not trying to be cruel or anything. I value the work that they're trying to do at Swivel, but this is an example of what I really worry about with the service.

Presenting data, and reaching honest conclusions from data is difficult, and in some ways Swivel seems to make it easier to do it wrong than to do it right.

We never seem to consider anything past the way we feel today. Taking a look at the historical implications of poor moral relative decisions has been a catastrophe for humans. What measure do we use to show a standard. Has anyone ever considrered taking advice from someone who has moral character and sticks to it, especially when odds are against them?

Hi rictic - Trust me, your comments are definitely taken in the spirit in which I think you intend. I, too, struggle with how to make it both easy and interesting for people to think about data critically but in a way that is actually valid. People will always come to some wrong conclusions, but keeping data away from them, and tools that make using data easier, is not the answer. Some of the things we are thinking about should help the problem you point out. It is a really important one. And please keep pointing it out - it keep us honest :) If you have specific ideas, please drop me a note anytime. As for these features stories, part of the goal is to get people to respond and thereby inform people who come after. So now people will see your comment and think about this graph in a different way. Not a bad way b/c the data is still really interesting, but a new way. So thanks.

I agree with rictic - this is a very misleading graph. Better perhaps to have a third color doubling the 2000 - 2005 stats as a projected extension of that data. Or compare 1990 - 1995 with 2000 - 2005. Bad representation of statistics is serious enough to be horrible, indeed. As prone to error as it may be, people are more inclined to read quantitative data as fact. Thus we have an even greater responsibility as communication designers to ensure accurate perceptions.