[glasslion]

NYTimes display the power output as a bubble chart on PC and bar chart on mobile.

I was shocked how misleading the bubble chart could be, The biggest dam is 3x larger than the smallest, but the it looks like only 1.5x larger on the bubble chart.

[FabHK]

Yes, I find bubble charts super annoying - it's not clear whether you're looking at the volume of a 3D ball, the area of a 2D sphere, or just the height.

Using the first two conventions often underplays the actual difference - our brain doesn't seem to be wired that way. A ball with twice the diameter is 8 times as voluminous, but on paper it seems just a tad bigger.

[athenot]

Bubble charts show the value in the area of the circle, not its diameter. The chart is accurate but we're accustomed to seeing inaccurate charts using diameters, usually to sensationalize an article.

[danso]

The difficulty for humans to interpret and compare circular areas is one of the reasons IIRC why Tufte and others are so adamant against pie charts.

[FabHK]

Surprises me - pie charts are properly used only to display proportions, and in a pie chart the area is proportional to the angle is proportional to the length of the arc, so there should be much less scope for confusion? We should all have good intuitions for our share of the pie or pizza, no...? :-)