The White House has a supplemental enhanced live stream of the State of the Union online that abets the President's speech with data, charts and information.
Most of them have been pretty good. They make compelling arguments and are well designed.
Then this one shows up when the President is talking about solar power.
It's certainly not a Venn Diagram. And the circles appear at sight as though they're the same size, even if they're supposed to express a difference. Why circles? Even more, circles are the worst way to display one dimensional data — what exactly are these circles attempting to articulate? Also, why do they overlap?
Also, the obvious problems with the stat. The U.S. and China are two completely different economies. These circles mean nothing.
Either way, this is a terrible chart. It's closer to the Flickr logo than a data set. What gives?
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