Naturally, despite Zed's assertion, not all graphs need to avoid his
enumeration of pitfalls. For example, if the target audience is
mathematically unsophisticated, most statistics (save perhaps mean) are
inappropriate. Or perhaps red is meaningful in some contexts. Or maybe
the presenter wants to show a very small delta, so an axis range is
chosen to illustrate this.
Nevertheless, Zed's enumeration can be extremely valuable in helping a
discerning reader (who doesn't already know it all!) to critically
interpret graphs in order to decide what s/he may conclude. For
example, if system X appears to outperforms system Y, but the difference
may be within the (unpresented) deviation, one should not accept the
assertion that X is superior. Instead, one may conclude that X may be
better than or comparable to Y.
Zed's article can help some of us tell the difference between lies and
truth. That's a good thing. The unfortunate weakness of the article is
that the example is not particularly compelling. It simply doesn't
illustrate the most important pitfalls.
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Nevertheless, Zed's enumeration can be extremely valuable in helping a discerning reader (who doesn't already know it all!) to critically interpret graphs in order to decide what s/he may conclude. For example, if system X appears to outperforms system Y, but the difference may be within the (unpresented) deviation, one should not accept the assertion that X is superior. Instead, one may conclude that X may be better than or comparable to Y.
Zed's article can help some of us tell the difference between lies and truth. That's a good thing. The unfortunate weakness of the article is that the example is not particularly compelling. It simply doesn't illustrate the most important pitfalls.