3.10.2011

Maps + Data Presentation

Since Sol recently posted on both NOAA's lovely data visualization labs and an assortment of map resources, I figured it might be worth pointing our readers to Cartastrophe. From the site's about page:
There are a lot of bad maps out there. They lurk in brochures, on company websites, and in magazines. They confuse, they miscommunicate, and they make it hard to learn anything about the world. Sometimes they leave off Sicily. They’re made by people who have to rush against tight deadlines, by people who are pressured by their bosses or clients to make bad design choices because it “looks cool,” and by people who were thrust into map-making jobs without any training.
[...]

We learn a lot from seeing what went wrong in someone else’s experience. I hope to amuse, but also to educate — to help people (myself included) understand what the elements of a good map are. And maybe, just maybe, if people are better able to understand what makes up a bad map, they’ll start demanding better ones.

The site is effectively the cartographic counterpart to Andrew Gelman's consistently superb data presentation critiques, and offers a huge amount of useful and thoughtful advice. Highlights:
The last link is particularly nice for its reminder that as much as many of us love Google maps (I have difficulty imagining how I went through life before it...) it can still contain major errors.

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