Planes, Trains & Automobiles of U.S. Presidents

Official Vehicles of the President of the United States is an infographic from TitleMax showing the evolution of the vehicles used by Presidents throughout our history.

When the POTUS (President of the Unite States) has to get around, he usually does it in style. And if he’s not in style, at least we know that he’s often surrounded by millions of dollars’ worth of security detail.

Yes, for the U.S. president, cars and vehicles have always been expensive, as has been Air Force One. History has put a spotlight on the presidents’ one-of-a-kind planes: mobile White Houses, with all of the protections therein.

This information is much better shown visually like this infographic than a text bullet list. I would like to see them placed on a timeline to better line them up and show where their use overlapped.

The infographic itself is missing a copyright statement, a citation of sources, and the URL for readers to be able to find the origial full-size infographic published by TitleMax.

Found on Infographic Journal

A Year of Driving 2016

A Year At The Wheel. If you are an owner of an Automatic connected car adapter, they create a personalized infographic with your own custom data.

A number of companies have started creating personalized data visualizations and infographic for their customers, which is a trend that I really like. As part of Automatic Labs, the Year In Review graphics give you insights into your own personal driving history data that you couldn't see anywhere else. One of many ways they are experimenting making your personal big data useful.

Big fonts are not data visualizations! My biggest critique is that there are sections that just show the data value in a big font. They were too lazy to create visualizations for the comparisons. For example, they took the time to calculate that 10,366 lbs of CO2 would require 207 large trees to offset, but a visual of 207 tree icons would be way more impactful!

Venn Diagram shows Tesla-SolarCity-SpaceX overlap

Yesterday (June 21, 2016) Tesla Motors offered to acquire SolarCity for $2.8 billion in stock. Unless you pay close attention, you may not realize that these are both companies headed by Elon Musk. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has visualized the shared investors and board members with this clear Venn Diagram showing the overlap between his three companies: Tesla, SolarCity and SpaceX.

The graphic helps put the merger news into context for the readers. The best infographics and data visualizations make complex information more approachable and understandable for the audience, and this one does that very well.

Found on TechCrunch, where you can see the design.

Ten Classic Superhero Vehicles

There are many popular superheroes from comic books, but not all of their vehicles are well known. The Ten Classic Superhero Vehicles infographic from Cherished Number Plates has illustrated a few of the lesser known choices of transportations of our heroes.

Here is an infographic we have created that takes a look at some of the less common classic superhero vehicles, from The Punisher’s Battle Van to The Flash’s rather unusual Cosmic Treadmill. Each vehicle - with the obvious exception of Wonder Woman’s Invisible Plane - is lovingly illustrated and presented in this infographic.

Light, fun content. Tangentially related to license plates.

The infographic footer is missing both a copyright (or Creative Commons) statement and the URL directly to the infographic landing page so readers can find the original, full-size version.

Thanks to Dave for sending in the link!

2012 Statistics: Pennsylvania Crashes

This infographic is a very detailed look into the 2012 Statistics of Pennsylvania Crashes. Solnick & Levin, a law firm that works on cases of personal injury due to accidents, released the infographic to help potential clients understand where their case may fall in the overall state statistics.

The charts and visualizations in this infographic design are clear and very easy for the readers to understand.

However, I frequently talk about the differences between showing statistics with a data visualization versus showing them in text-alone. This is a great example, where some stats are visualized where others are not. Any of the stats shown as only text are generally considered to be secondary information by the readers because they weren’t important enough for the designer to spend the time to visualize.

My recommendation is that you should carefully choose to only include the important statistics that support the overall story in any particular infographic design.  If a data point makes the cut and is picked to be included, the designer should take the time to visualize it to make it more easily understood by the readers.

Thanks to James for sending in the link!

How to Buy a Used Car: 12 Things You Didn’t Know About Car Buying

For some buying a used car is fun, for others troublesome. The How to Buy a Used Car: 12 Things You Didn’t Know About Car Buying infographic from Toyota Certified gives some interesting facts and tips on buying a used car.

Whether you’re in the market for a family SUV, or a sporty little two-seater just for you, buying a used car is something that most of us do at least once in a lifetime. Toyota recently did a fascinating survey that outlines 12 Things You Didn’t Know About Car Buying and found that 26% of us find the experience fun and interesting… and 52% of buyers have no idea what model they want until they step into the dealership! Check out this fun infographic that takes a closer look at America’s car buying experience and you may discover some interesting facts you didn’t know… and some helpful tips about buying your next used vehicle, as well.

Good design, and I love that Toyota Certified (the used car division of Toyota) is sharing some of their internal customer information publicly.  They definitely need to do a better job citing the sources of the data, but some of these statistics are clearly based on Toyota sales numbers.  Others like the “Top Brand Loyalty” that shows Toyota as #1 are suspect because no source is listed.

A few of the percentage statistics could be better visualized.  A percentage is always comparing the statistical value to the total possible of 100%.   So numbers like “53% of buyers prefer their first dealer interaction to be online” should be shown as a stacked bar totaling 100%.  Others like “80% of people used the Internet in their car research” weren’t visualized at all, which makes them feel less important and secondary information to the audience.

Data visualization errors like the doughnut chart of the “Most Popular Colors” just hurt the brand credibility.  You can’t have a pie chart or a doughnut chart that only adds up to 88%.  They must total 100%!

Thanks to Belinda for sending in the link!

What Does the Colour of Your Car Say About You?

If you think picking a car color was hard before, this infographic could make your decision easier or even harder. The What Does the Colour of Your Car Say About You? infographic published by Motor Click gives meaning to your choice in car color.

The wide variety of colors available has some questioning whether consumers make their selection based on simple preference, or whether or not the color of their vehicle somehow reflects their psychology. Whatever the reason, it cannot be denied that color plays a huge role in sales.

This is a good infographic design that takes information from the following text-only article and makes it visual: The Psychology Behind the Color of Your Car.  This design tells one story really well, and only takes a few seconds for the reader to understand.  Designed by Attwood Digital.

A couple issues with this design.  Obviously from a car company in the UK, the spelling of color/colour is oddly mixed throughout the design.  Also the data is a little bit questionable.  The article referenced isn’t the original source of information, and that article includes claims and quotes from additional sources.  Definitely take this information with a grain of salt.  There may be underlying credibility issues.

The footer should include the URL link back to the infographic landing page so the audience can find the original full-size version when they come across it shared on other sites.  For example, it’s had over 5,000 views on the Visual.ly site so far, but that submission does not link back to the original on the MotorClick site. So, all of that good traffic to view the infographic is not benefitting the original publisher at all.

Found on Visual.ly

The Cost of a Road Trip to the Top 10 U.S. Vacation Cities

I Drive Safely and Gas Buddy partner up to create the Cost of a Road Trip to the Top 10 U.S. Vacation Cities infographic. The infographic calculates the total cost of food, lodgings, and gas and then gives some money saving tips. This infographic can be found on idrivesafely.com.

Did you know that a road trip to the top 10 US vacation cities is more than 7,600 miles (12,231km) of driving? That’s the same distance as a flight from Alaska to Australia! Wondering if you could afford to pack up and leave on this awesome road trip? We partnered with our friends at GasBuddy.com to bring you the infographic below which breaks down the cost of a 25-day road trip including the cost of gas, food and lodging. We’ve also included some tips for saving money on your trip.

The top 10 U.S. vacation cities are based on a 2012 poll from U.S. News Travel and excludes cities not in the continental United States. Fun fact: 3 of the top 10 US vacations spots are in California: San Diego, Yosemite and San Francisco!

Fun topic idea, and certainly relevant to both Gas Buddy and I Drive Safely.  Relevance is super-important as the search engines would like to down-grade the value of links to irrelevant content.

I would have liked to see more of the actual data visualized in the design.  Why does the calendar icon have 8 days shown when the data is 5.2 days?  Because it’s just an icon, not a data visualization, and can be confusing to readers.  The costs would have been very easy to visualize as stacked bars to make them easier to understand.

Thanks to John for sending in the link!

Most Reliable Cars

Are you looking for a new car? The Most Reliable Cars infographic from MoneySupermarket rates how reliable the manufacturers are as well as specific car models. The lower the score, the more reliable the car is. If your current car isn’t on the list. Maybe it is time to get a new one.

It is never a pleasant experience to find yourself stranded next to a broken down vehicle at the side of the road, particularly during the winter. Breakdown cover can help to reduce the pain somewhat, but it is still worth making sure that you pick the most reliable car available.

MoneySupermarket.com has therefore teamed up with Warranty Direct to put together the following lists which highlight the most reliable cars on the road. This is decided upon by taking into account overall reliability and the average cost of repairs for these manufacturers and models – coming up with an overall Reliability Index (RI) score. Just for reference- the average RI is 100, and the lower the score the better.

We’ve broken this down by both car make and by individual vehicle models to come up with a definitive list which could prove invaluable to you during the car buying process.

This is a really good use of bar charts.  The company logos or car photos and the relevant data is built directly into the chart so there is no need for a chart legend.  Very easy to read and understand.

Thanks to Mark for sending in the link!

The Dangers of Speeding While Driving

Of course you already know that speeding is dangerous, but The Dangers of Speeding While Driving infographic from Chucker & Reibach highlights some of the statistics behind traffic incidents that result from putting the pedal to the metal!

The dangers of speeding are certainly well known to most drivers, either by getting a ticket for speeding from law enforcement or being part of an accident due to someone driving too fast or even having a loved one be a victim of excessive speeding. This infographic provides statistics about speeding, including how often speeding results in a fatality, how much does speeding actually cost and what are the main reasons that people speed. In the end, any reason a driver gives for speeding will never be worth the potential costs.

I like this design, and it lays out the relevant statistics for the reader in an easy to understand layout.

A few suggestions I would make to improve the design:

• Too many of the statistics are shown in a large font text, but not visualized
• Needs a URL to the original landing page of the infographic so readers can find the original, full-size version on sites that don’t link back correctly.
• Needs a copyright or Creative Commons license statement in the infographic itself
• How does speeding make gas more expensive?  I think it means that your car will use more gas per mile with a lower fuel efficiency (gas guzzler), but the stat wording says that you would pay $0.24 more per gallon.
• The “Where People Speed” section is hard to understand.  Does the statistic “47% speed on roads 50MPH or less” mean that the speeding accidents happen at speeds less than 5-MPH or the speed limit on the road is 50MPH or less?  The visual speedometer implies it’s the speed of the car, but I think the stat meant the posted speed limit on the road.

Thanks to Shell for sending in the link!