I see them a lot in Japan, in not particularly geeky contexts, so I’m sure they must have a name. I’d call them polygon graphs. Anyone knows the common name and perhaps where I can find more about them?
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Wikipedia has them as Radar Charts.
Ah, thank you merry webfolk, James & pkobayashi! (and apologies for the comment spam to the subscribers…)
My girlfriend just told me they are truly common in Japan, once even appearing on a popular comedy show where they rated jokes. One reason why they might be popular in Japan is because the labels are much neater & compact in Japanese script.
It seems that it was introduced by John Tukey. Speaking of whom, I remember my amazement when I first learned about his stem-and-leaf diagrams… such elegance! He would appreciate how ubiquitous they’re all over Japan, displayed in every train station to list times. Sometimes 2 leave-sets share the same stem for added elegance at the cost of some ease of use.
And since we’re on the topic of Japanese information design. The other day at a train station I stumbled on this astonishingly complicated table of rates and distances between stations.
The most interesting detail to me was the blue 5×5 square grid, more elegant and better suited to these battalions of table data than zebra-striping, and providing vertical aids as well. Nice, right?
Anyone with a neat “real life” infodesign example to share, please! :)