I found a story about Teddy Bridgewater and the Minnesota Vikings on FiveThirtyEight.com. The story uses a lot of visually pleasing graphics and data tables to tell the story of how the Vikings are now in “quarterback hell.” Bridgewater injured his knee last Tuesday and will be out for the rest of the season. They added a table that compared Bridgewater’s 2015 season to some of the greatest seasons that other QB’s have had in the past 40 years. The author mentioned, “One way of measuring a young quarterback’s promise is to find historical passers who produced similar statistics at the same age, and track how those players’ careers ended up panning out.”
A timeline was included that showed past Viking’s quarterbacks and how their seasons panned out. The highest points on the graph represent high wins and the teams success. And the low points on the graph and usually closely followed by another name, meaning their were replaced. Bridgewater had a promising future with the Vikings and the visual data in this story gives readers concrete evidence of this.
This infographic story measures up to the standards of Tufte and basic design principles. The charts made intelligent and appropriate comparisons between Bridgewater and past QB’s. The data tables were clear and easy to read. The color pallet of the line graph made distinctions between different players and the labels show when each started as QB. The graphs did not contain jargon or cram a bunch of information. And most importantly, the graphs integrated evidence to back up the main point of the article