Contrary to what you might think, this review is not about autism. It is about presenting statistics in interesting, even cool ways. For me, a visual person, this image is very effective. I will always remember that one in one hundred and fifty people have autism because this image is now burned in my mind.
One of my favorite photographers, Chris Jordan, likes to bring attention to how much waste we humans produce. At first, he would take pictures of things like plastic cups, and then say that one million plastic cups were used on airline flights in the U.S. every six hours. Then he had the idea to actually visualize one million plastic cups by combining smaller pictures of stacks of plastic cups. The visual result was staggering and really brought the statistic to life.
So, I was delighted to find this page called Interesting Visual Statistics by Heather aka hlkljgk. Heather provides many different examples of statistics presented visually in novel ways. You will see the difference in sugar content between a rice cake and a chocolate shake. There is a visual guide to the federal budget that shows where your tax dollars are going. That's a little scary! And you can find out why a salad costs more than a Big Mac. But my favorite visual is from a site called Flowing Data, where data is presented with animation. In this particular one, we see the growth of Walmart from 1962 to 2006. It is fascinating to watch! And, if that weren't enough, you can also watch a Radiohead video called "House of Cards" in which no cameras or lights were used.
There is a quote in this lens that states, "The greatest value of a picture is when it forces us to notice what we never expected to see. (John W. Tukey)" Since we are bombarded with so much information every single day, these creative visuals really help us to cut to the chase, and understand what the statistics really mean for us.
Visit: Interesting Visual Statistics
Image Credit: Autism, 1 in 150 by jillgo4th
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