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Staring at stars

The newspaper “Die Welt” drew a picture. Of 100 eBay stars. 23 are filled, 77 are empty. One star is 10 percent. 10 stars are 100 percent. A star can be filled. Each star has 5 spikes. 2 spikes are 4 percent. 10 values are to be starred. The biggest value is 28 percent. That’s roughly 3 stars. Complicated? “Die Welt” thought so, too. For 20, 19, 18, 17, and 15, they simply filled 2 stars completely.

One out five Germans sell goods or services over the Internet. Source: Die Welt, 2012-04-10, page 13.
Source: Die Welt, 2012-04-10, page 13. Share of individuals selling goods or services over the Internet.

Show where 100 percent is? No. Because that never appears. Not even close. Cannot appear. Because not even all Danish live only in eBay.

Divide into stars, then fill the stars? No. If you divide, divide into whole things. If you fill, fill only whole things. Like in stacked dots or in fill charts.

Stare at 70 stars? No. All valueless. Due to a lack of values.

Full width three times wider than the used width? No.

Stack uneven things and fill them unevenly? No.

Is this the Welt’s worst graphic? Or this one? That’s still written in the stars.

Ten values can be shown with ten bars. BITKOM thought so, too.


Source: BITKOM (the Federal Association for Information Technology,
Telecommunications, and New Media in Germany).

Nicolas Bissantz

Diagramme im Management

Besser entscheiden mit der richtigen Visualisierung von Daten

Erhältlich überall, wo es Bücher gibt, und im Haufe-Onlineshop.