Comments on: Bubbles Galore in Analysis of Banks’ Financial Health

By: Bob Gannon

Bob Gannon — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:10:06 +0000

I think the correct word is measurement, not metric. Using “metric” is just more flash. Like putting rouge on Jon’s hooker.

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:29:06 +0000

Hey Tim -

Re the “missionary” line, which was clever by the way:

Sometimes these flashy effects seem more like getting drunk and hiring a hooker. Not that I have any relevant experience of course, but charts like this leave me feeling dirty.

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:21:58 +0000

Whenever I see a bubble chart, I’m reminded of Eddie Murphy’s quip about bubble baths while growing up poor, in “Trading Places”.

By: jeffrey weir

jeffrey weir — Mon, 18 May 2009 01:40:03 +0000

I meant ‘partners’.

By: jeffrey weir

jeffrey weir — Mon, 18 May 2009 01:21:53 +0000

Tim “Always using bar charts is like always using missionary position. It might be more practical, but it gets boring!”

- rather than changing positions in order to spice it up, change parters instead.

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 18 May 2009 00:04:15 +0000

Well it’s an interactive piece, so I assume the creator wanted people to interact with it and explore. So I am not sure it is bad in that sense.

By: Inconsequential Foreplay

Inconsequential Foreplay — Sun, 17 May 2009 21:10:41 +0000

[...] Nathan discusses this chart. He says: I know a lot of you don’t like bubbles in your viz, but this one works for me. [...]

By: Matt Alcock

Matt Alcock — Fri, 15 May 2009 14:49:28 +0000

@Tim, Nathan

You can look at reams of data in a table and explore it to find the nuggets but this doesn’t make it the ‘best’ visualization. The fact you had to explorer was bad, wasn’t it? I found myself flicking between banks continually to compare stats which means it wasn’t visualized in the way I was looking to interpret it.

I thought it looked good and esthetic but I think you can have esthetic and effective. I think this fails on the effective rather than the esthetic.

Tim using your brilliant analogy. Which made me laugh out loud!

It may be better than the missionary but is it the best position? Probably not

You need it to be exciting but you also need to deliver the goods.

Matt

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 14 May 2009 22:19:44 +0000

i’m with Nathan, works for me.

I looked at it and within a second or two I knew what it does, and then I explored a little and quickly found the nuggets.

Always using bar charts is like always using missionary position. It might be more practical, but it gets boring!

By: BCC

BCC — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:44:54 +0000

I think this is OK (the fact that all data for a single bank is highlighted s you move the mouse around is particularly helpful), but not as good as it could be.

I nominate this dataset for a FlowingData redo contest.