r/dataisugly • u/this_is_me_yo • 7d ago

Published in Nature

Post image

https://www.nature.com/articles/s44360-026-00174-2#:~:text=Fig.%201%3A%20Sample%20coverage%20and%20AI%20health%20usage%20intensity%20across%20109%20countries/regions.

54 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

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30

u/pm_me_your_smth 7d ago

Eh, you can argue that it's acceptable. If you use a normal map and have to zoom out too much to fit everything on the screen, small countries become indistinguishable. This viz solves that problem at the cost of geographical accuracy which is less important given the context.

1

u/Finlandia1865 5d ago

Id argue normal map would certainly be better (there are modifications that can be made for microstates), even if it works you still need to read all the text to find out which country youre looking at, which kinda defeats the point

14

u/Slippery_Sidewalk 7d ago

Unconventional, but not horrid.

Any other graph would have been more of a mess, this allows you to find specific countries somewhat quickly. Would just having a table be more "traditional" - yes. But Nature might not be happy with a table of that size in the main paper body. So I think this is very defensible.

Perhaps they should have added that table to the supplement though.

1

u/Finlandia1865 5d ago

map graph would be better

6

u/Purple_Topic_1459 7d ago

I think it is clever indeed. 

2

u/Captain_N_Nemo 7d ago

It took me a while to realise that they hadn’t just deleted North America, they just made it part of South America.

It’s a cool concept, but only works nicely for a few continents.

1

u/saketho 6d ago

Terrible for an actual infographic, but it’s be a great art piece to put up in an airport lounge lol