For instance, this infographic from last year uses area and two states to visualize the loss of over $88 billion in value during the collapse of the US banking system. It’s very effective, conveys the massive drop in value well, and frankly, it works better with an animated transition than a static image would have.

This is an important point: just because you can make something “interactive”, it doesn’t mean you’re not better off with a nice, standards-compliant JPEG. (Hey, how’s it going, Canadian Press?)

On the other hand, there really isn’t a better way to represent the data available than how the NY Times has here. Colour me impressed.

While otherwise a competent, irritatingly underfunded news organization, the CBC sucks at infographics. Most of their “interactive features” are just text that requires a lot of clicking and scrolling to read. That’s not “interactive”, guys. That’s “broken”. (In fairness, a lot of these come from the Canadian Press, which presumably also supplies these horrible clicky things to the two other^[1] Canadian news organizations.)

But I digress. A tad.

Yeah, that’s a shame.

This graph of the depressing failure that is Northern Telecom is pretty good because it ties news and events to stock price over time. There’s still ridiculous amounts of clicking on tiny little dots though. Mouseover, anyone?

(In fairness, there are at least forward/back buttons.)

I find it really bizarre that the two most effective “interactive” features on CBC’s website are both incredibly morbid: a “where did people find feet washed up on beaches?” map, and a map of gang hits in Metro Vancouver. (Wow, that map certainly makes the Downtown East Side look quiet. “DTES: Too poor for gang-bangers.”)

Both of these, predictably, use Google Maps, and colour-code the different categories of event at that location. (“Raccoon paw hoax” or “stabbing”, for example.) This conveys a decent amount of information without having to select the icon to view additional details. However, you still do have to click the thing to find out anything more.

I will say, though, that the effectiveness of both of these horrible death maps could be improved by taking time and date into account: personally, I want to see how long ago those people down the street got murdered in their attic. I mean, really, now. (I remember seeing a Google Maps mashup that did this, with a slider at the bottom. Can anyone help me out with a URL?)

The New York Times, on the other hand, takes online infographics to a whole new level, rivaling the quality of their print features. I’ll explain more about this in 30 minutes.

[1] Yes, seriously. (Stupid Conrad Black. Stupid CRTC.)