Fire data isn’t ugly Presenting fire data effectively series Episode: 3D is for the movies

July 2015

A makeover of fire department data to transform it from unclear and underperforming to powerfully informative.

Microsoft Excel is not just a powerful tool to keep data and spreadsheets. It’s a friend for creating quick charts.

However, you need to maintain integrity in the information you present using those charts.

Exhibit: 3d pie It’s exploding everywhere

Trauma, 8%

Other, 9%

Abdominal Pain, 10%

Cardiac, 15%

General Weakness,

17%

Respiratory, 20%

Neurological, 21%

Initial Patient Complaint

Pie may be bad but There is nothing you can learn from an exploded pie

Trauma, 8%

Other, 9%

Abdominal Pain, 10%

Cardiac, 15%

General Weakness,

17%

Respiratory, 20%

Neurological, 21%

Initial Patient Complaint

The problem with 3D is the strain it puts on your eye’s ability to perceive not only the area but angle of each pie slice. Exploding the pie chart just makes it that much worse. These are the same numbers presented again “flat”.

Trauma, 8%

Other, 9%

Abdominal Pain, 10%

Cardiac, 15%

General Weakness,

17%

Respiratory, 20%

Neurological, 21%

Initial Patient Complaint

The eye will treat the shadows as part of the category, overemphasizing the size of them. So if you want to make something seem bigger or more important, sure, use 3D but you are responsible for the integrity of the information you present.

The center of the pie chart also moves up and shrinks any categories at the back. See how much longer the red arrow is? Your eye can’t compete with that kind of damaged presentation.

Say it with me now: Just because 3d explosions are an available choice doesn’t mean you should ever use them

Even without 3D a pie chart is not the most appropriate choice for the data we’re presenting. A bar chart would be perfect. See Episode: Pie is rarely a good idea to view the whole transformation.

8%

9%

10%

15%

17%

20%

21%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

Trauma

Other

Abdominal Pain

Cardiac

General Weakness

Respiratory

Neurological

Initial Patient Complaint

Other, 9%

Abdominal Pain, 10%

Cardiac, 15%

General Weakness,

17%

Respiratory, 20%

Neurological, 21%

Initial Patient Complaint

What happens if we use 3D on a bar chart? Nothing good. Our bars look completely different in 3D.

8%

9%

10%

15%

17%

20%

21%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

Trauma

Other

Abdominal Pain

Cardiac

General Weakness

Respiratory

Neurological

Initial Patient Complaint

0% 10% 20% 30%

TraumaOther

Abdominal Pain

Cardiac

General Weakness

Respiratory

Neurological

8% 9% 10%

15%

17%

20%

21%

Initial Patient Complaint

Technically, the point ends at the bottom corner but that’s not what our eyes see. Our eyes can’t really tell where the bars end. Even Respiratory at 20% doesn’t line up with the gridline.

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

TraumaOther

Abdominal PainCardiac

General WeaknessRespiratory

Neurological

8% 9%

10% 15%

17% 20%

21%

Initial Patient Complaint

And those shadows on the end? You guessed it. They interfere with your eye’s ability to judge length. Not to mention how bad the labels look without lining up to the bars.

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

TraumaOther

Abdominal PainCardiac

General WeaknessRespiratory

Neurological

8% 9%

10% 15%

17% 20%

21%

Initial Patient Complaint

The 3D effect itself changes the way your eye can perceive each bar. The bars aren’t flat, distorting your eye’s ability to judge the length even without the shadows.

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

TraumaOther

Abdominal PainCardiac

General WeaknessRespiratory

Neurological

8% 9%

10% 15%

17% 20%

21%

Initial Patient Complaint

While we’re on the topic of distortion, changing the bars to cones is even worse. Now your eye is stuck at the base of all the cones with a teensy little end. The purpose of a chart is to help visualize the data. Make sure your choices reflect that purpose.

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

TraumaOther

Abdominal PainCardiac

General WeaknessRespiratory

Neurological

Initial Patient Complaint

A column chart fairs no better in 3D. You still have the shadows and tilted columns but now you have some columns with a huge amount of shadow and another with hardly any shadow.

0%5%

10%15%20%25%

8% 9% 10% 15% 17% 20% 21%

Initial Patient Complaint

Cylinders suffer the same problems.

Initial Patient Complaint

0%10%20%30%

8% 9% 10% 15% 17% 20% 21%

Initial Patient Complaint

As do cones. Literally all I’ve done is change the chart type to one of the 3D “fun” varieties.

0%5%

10%15%20%25%

8% 9% 10% 15% 17% 20% 21%

Initial Patient Complaint

Charts are not for fun. They are for informing. Simple, clean designs that make it easy on our eyes are perfect. They’re all you need, really.

8%

9%

10%

15%

17%

20%

21%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

Trauma

Other

Abdominal Pain

Cardiac

General Weakness

Respiratory

Neurological

We need to add training for neurological complaints to the calendar, as we have mostly focused training on trauma and cardiac incidents.

Avoid 3d at all costs Unless your data has something to hide using 3d is always a bad choice

Hello! I’m Sara Wood and I love converting fire service members into

NFIRS operatives. I’m the State NFIRS program manager for Kansas and

enjoy providing classes to help bring fire departments into the era of data

driven decisions. If you need help creating a presentation or analyzing

your data, I’d love to hear from you!