All techniques
Axis crimes
Uneven intervals
1990, 1995, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2007 — evenly spaced.
a.k.a. irregular binning · elastic time
Plot irregular time steps at regular spacing and you silently stretch some periods and compress others. Slopes become fiction: a decade and a single year occupy the same width, so the “acceleration” is typography.
How to spot it
- Read the x-axis labels: do equal gaps represent equal amounts of time?
- Bins like 0–18, 19–25, and 26–64 drawn at the same width.
The honest version
Position values where they actually fall. If bins must vary, their widths should vary with them.
In the gallery
No exhibits charged with this — yet.
The wall is still being hung. When a chart pulls this trick, it'll be exhibited here.
Browse the gallery