Infographics Experts on Sankey Diagrams (Part 1)

Chiqui Esteban who runs the Spanish blog infografistas.com had two posts back in March/April about a discussion he had with his colleague Xocas on how to name Sankey diagrams. Or, to be more precise: how a certain type of diagram that is more and more used in infographics should be named correctly.

They are absolutely funny, so I am trying to give you a translation of these two blog posts. This is part 1 for a post from March 17 titled “Gráficos de erogación”. I left some words in Spanish and my comments in square brackets.

— translation start —

Distribution Graphics

A couple of months ago, Xocas and I discussed via GTalk what the name, or what should be the name of the diagrams with the little arms [‘gráficos de bracitos’]. As it turned out, the winner name was volume flow graphics [‘gráfico de caudales’].

Today, we decided to withdraw our proposal and we are going to call them ‘distribution graphics’ instead [‘gráficos de erogación’].

This is because of the coffee. The coffee machine of my new employer www.lainformacion.com (click the link, we are already up running), shows the message ‘distributing’ [‘erogando’] while you wait for your cup to be filled. Looking in the RAE [note: Real Academia Española], the verb ‘erogar’ is defined as:

(Del lat. erogāre).

1. tr. Distribuir, repartir bienes o caudales. [distribute, share the goods or funds]
2. tr. Méx. y Ven. Gastar el dinero. [México and Venezuela: spend money]

This definition is spot on. So we shouldn’t continue to call them ‘little arms’ [‘de bracitos’], ‘tubing’ [‘de tubería’], ‘squid’ [‘de pulpo’], ‘tree-roots’ [‘raíces’] or whatever diagrams any more. But don’t say that we didn’t work hard in finding the correct nomenclature. As we have to do. So Tufte will… [‘A Tuftear’].

— translation end —

The accompanying Sankey diagram apparently is from the New York Times and shows how 21.4 billion $ in federal aid for NYC after 9/11 were distributed (hey! there you are, a ‘distribution diagram’ 😉 ). Funny enough, the caption says: “The figure above is an attempt to bring sources of funds together and show how they add up (sic!) to $ 21.3 billion”.

So what is distribution for one, is “adding up” from another perspective.

Part 2, the translation of “Caudales, erogación… ¿flujo?” and a summary of the comments to follow.

Note (Aug 19): A case of DYRF, do your research first! I just detected that Chiqui himself has an English version of his article here. So, now you got the choice between two versions!