

What people are really buying online: infographic - araneae
http://www.permuto.com/blog/2010/02/27/what-are-people-really-buying-online/

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aristus
Christ onna bike. They seem to have gone out of their way to invent charts
that are _even more confusing_ than pie charts. Let's do an annulus! With a
wavy edge! And then differently-sized hemicircles... wha?

This is interesting information (eg % of online vs in-store clothing
purchases) but badly presented.

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dandelany
I'll admit the wavy-edged annulus is a little over the top, but compared to a
standard pie chart, I think the double hemicircle is clever and more visually
interesting than a standard pie, with no loss of information.

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aristus
The hemicircles are still too clever by half. We tend to judge the difference
in the height of the facing edges, but a hemi that is twice the height of
another is actually 4 times the area.

So an 80/20 split will appear to be more like 66/33 if you are not paying
attention. On that page there is one stat with a 10/1 ratio, but at first
glance it feels more like 4/1 or 5/1.

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sokoloff
I don't think I buy it (so to speak). More food, beer and wine purchases
online than offline? I'm pretty hardcore about buying online whenever
possible, and I buy only a miniscule percentage of my food online and no wine
or beer online.

