Part of this blog is intended to show the processes behind our work, including bad ideas. (Especially bad ideas.) But screw-ups don’t happen just in charts. For example, here’s a recent, not-really-verbatim conversation I had with my colleague Graham Roberts as we looked at visualizing swimmers for an upcoming Olympics project:
GR: “We need a decent way to identify these guys.”
KQ: “What if we put a flag on their bathing suits?”
GR: “Like on their Speedos? Wouldn’t that be weird?”
KQ: “Not really.”
GR: “Really?”
KQ: “Let’s just see what it looks like.”
[5 minutes later]
KQ: “So, no flags, huh.”
GR: “Yeah.”