A Critic of InfoGraphics in the Washington Post

Jon Udell’s blog post about visual explanations in the Washington Post. After pointing out some problems with two graphs that he found that paper he goes on to say:

First, that we all need all need more and better tools to help us create and analyze these visual explanations. Second, that the natural home for such tools is online. We should expect to find much more there than static PDFs of the printed infographics. The data, as well as the interactive tools used to analyze the data, can and should be online. It should be straightforward to verify facts and explore alternate interpretations.

Although I would agree with this sentiment, the current size and resolution of monitors limits their ability to display data visualizations effectively. However, the New York Times is making some effort to include Flash-based interactive graphics in their online edition: The State of Executive Pay in 2005