vdqi gallery

Train Schedule

the Metro North railroad's New Haven line AM schedule in-bound to Grand Central in Manhattan.

Ayres' American Divisions in France

this is a reproduction of Ayres' barchart, displaying the American divisions in France over a 17-month period. on the left is a more traditional interpretation of the same data. the Ayres barchart, which i like to call a "barset" because it displays not only the magnitude but the contents of the datapoint, includes much more information than the traditional representation.

both graphs readily show the pattern of steady increase. the barset divulges more patterns:

• we can easily distinguish the division numbers.
• furthermore, we see that once a division appears on the graph, it is there to stay; no division has relocated or returned home.
• this fact makes it easy to see that we can easily determine the time of deployment and the subsequent length of stay of each division.

most importantly about these details is that they are available, but do not detract from the simplicity of the overall graph, which is as effective as its simpler counterpart at conveying the overall trend; but that the details are there if you want them.

United States. War Dept. General Staff, Leonard Porter Ayres "The war with Germany: a statistical summary" p. 102

External Examples

Here are some excellent examples done by others of simplifying and clarifying information.

Playfair's Wages vs. Wheat

This page shows an excellent example of clarifying and improving William Playfair's original Price of Wheat vs. Weekly Wages by simplifying it by displaying the data as a ratio, which more clearly demonstrates that the relative price of wheat drops over time relative to wage. The best-fit line makes this even clearer.