The 27 Worst Charts Of All Time

There are some pretty awful charts out there. 

We've talked about certain mediums — like pie charts and infographics — that are fundamentally flawed, but it's always important to look at specific examples of charts gone wrong. 

As a learning exercise, we pulled together these 27 charts that are particularly bad. 

It's not that the chart creators are dumb or careless – to the contrary, a lot of work seems to have been done on several of these by quite intelligent people — it's just that people have access to more data visualization assets today than ever before.

All periods of innovation are also periods of widespread failure, as people try to create something new and occasionally push out a few duds.

So here are 27 charts that — for one reason or another – belong among the pantheon of worst charts ever made. 

Special shout outs to both Andrew Gelman's excellent blog as well as the Eager Eyes blog, both of which are excellent sources of chart criticism and insight. 

View the original article here