One of the ways that I can tell I've made an impact on people I've interacted with is when they send me links to terrible visualizations that they want me to makeover, long after we have worked together. My friend Karyn, who I used to work with at Facebook, send me a link last week to this infographic:


Of course the point of this infographic is to show how much money the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has raised compared to how few die from the disease relative to other diseases. The data is from 2011, so it doesn't account for the fact that the Ice Bucket Challenge has now raised over $100M. For the purpose of this makeover, let's focus on the chart itself. I see several issues immediately:

1. The bubble sizes were originally based on the diameter of the circles, not the area.  This is a big mistake! The author has since fixed this so the graphic above is now correct.
2. There are too many colors. I find myself going back and forth to the legend. It shouldn't be so hard for the readers.
3. The colors in the legend are in no particular order; not alphabetical, not by deaths, nor not by money raised. This is way too confusing.
4. It's difficult to trace the relationship between the deaths and the money raised.