> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.philsimon.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# How Not to Visualize Data
- URL: https://www.philsimon.com/how-not-to-visualize-data/
- Published: 2013-07-23T18:54:17.000Z
- Updated: 2025-07-12T20:25:54.000Z
- Description: A dataviz foul on The Wall Street Journal is instructive in a bad sort of way.
- Author: Phil Simon
- Tags: Big Data, Dataviz, NBA, The Visual Organization

According to the [*Wall Street Journal*](https://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/07/23/u-s-health-spending-one-of-these-things-not-like-others/?ref=philsimon.com), the US spends a great deal of healthcare. See for yourself:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/8f/b5/8fb5e321-49a6-4cf5-8a28-c6f6d5417e54/content/images/2025/05/bad_health_dataviz-1.jpg)

> Visual Organizations understand that less is often more.

Interesting stuff, but this is an absolutely terrible way to visualize data. The word *morass* comes to mind. Can you tell how Mexico has changed over time? I sure can't. I can only make out a few of the countries here. What's more, Ireland and Mexico share the same color. Which is which? Increase the y-axis and decrease the number of countries. People might actually be able to read this.

I could go on all day but what's a better way?

See how [538](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/lebron-james-is-indestructible/?ref=philsimon.com) effectively represents similar longitudinal data from the NBA by separating charts:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/8f/b5/8fb5e321-49a6-4cf5-8a28-c6f6d5417e54/content/images/2025/07/538-data.webp)

Source: 538

How much clearer is this information?

## Simon Says

Visual Organizations understand that less is often more. Cramming everything into one chart is bound to confuse customers, users, and employees.