Your Risk of Death, Annotated

By Mac McBurney

Update (27 June): The comments posted by Wired Science readers are an amazing case study in information design, how well-intentioned readers get confused, limitations of the Google Motion Chart. I chronicled my own confusion and suggestions on a screen shot.

Wired Science wants to know if a Google Motion Chart helps explain that smoking could kill you. So far, you only includes men born between 1933 and 1973, but that’s not what makes the interactive graph confusing.

Author Alexis Madrigal chose to experiment with this data set, “because the researchers had the stated goal of presenting health-risk data in ways that could let people see the true risks associated with smoking.”

Comments on the blog point out a variety of confusing bits and suggest ways to improve this particular plot and the Google Motion Chart in general.

Interactive Chart: Your Risk of Death