Because a picture is worth a thousand words (or numbers) you need to see some of the best data visualisation examples. It is worth knowing that… There is a tried and tested way to communicate with data — Storytelling With Data. That infographics can be powerful — Information is Beautiful. But most infographics are not […]
Reducing Complexity
Avoiding Overwhelm In their book Meltdown, Clearfield and Tilcsik show how complicated systems fail. They discuss nuclear accidents, financial disasters and medical mishaps and show how we can avoid disasters by reducing complexity. The more complex our systems become, the less easy they are to understand. So they become harder to fix when they break. Add […]
Preventing Human Error
A Problem with the envelope On February 26th 2017, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences held its 89th award ceremony, celebrating the best films of 2016. The ceremony was a case study in preventing human error (or not depending on your perspective). It went swimmingly until the very last award for best picture. Faye Dunaway […]
Information Overload
A broken valve In the early hours of the morning on March 28th 1979, a valve broke on a water pipe. That pipe was at the nuclear power plant on Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. The failure resulted in the most serious nuclear incident that the USA has ever seen. Chain reaction The broken valve led to […]
Never Trust a Single Number
Dubious statistics Journalists love to use single numbers, they do it all the time: Three British women will get pioneering womb transplants 4,000 foreign criminals including murderers and rapists we can’t throw out NHS hospitals save £400,000 by switching to same brand of surgical gloves But single numbers are meaningless. People quote point metrics and […]
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- Next Page »