I’ve always been super intrigued by decathlon, heptathlon and pentathlon scoring, just because I like numbers, but this fivethirtyeight article triggered even more interest. I personally think the article combined data and infographics very well, and most of our reading agrees.
The infographics were effective in that they were simple, not over-cluttered and easy to interpret. While there was diverse color, the colors had meaning, especially in the bottom two graphics, showing what types of events they are by color.
Additionally, the infographics were content focused and easily comparable. Pagels used color and bars to easily illustrate the differences in event’s points. The percentages could have been better described though, as it was rather unclear what exactly the axis was.
In the first two graphs where the lines where very cluttered, Pagels wisely used white space and avoided too much on one infographic. The eye is directly drawn to where it should be–the data. The grids in the last two infographics were subtle, but could have definitely been toned down in the first two.
The graphs were great supplements to the story itself, which was very data heavy. Could be a little bit heavy for a non-math person, but that’s fivethirtyeight for you.