The Olympic Sports That Have Come and Gone

Source: FiveThirtyEight
Author: Allison McCann

Best Practices:

• Very well organised
• Easy to understand
• Good use of color; they’re synonymous with the Olympics
• Nice labelling
• Good use of annotations

Recommended Enhancements:

• The design highlights the sports that have gone away. It might make more sense to switch these around so that these sports fade away with a light grey.
• It’s too hard to see the reinstated sports. Maybe include another color for these.

Ichiro: All 3000 MLB Hits

Source: Twitter
Author: MLB Stat of the Day

Best Practices:

• Nice use of images
• Good use of color to distinguish the types of hits
• Using a spray chart clearly shows how Ichiro could hit the ball to any part of the park
• Using a dot for each hit and a different color for each hit type shows all of his power was to rightfield
• A baseball field as a background helps add context (some problem though)
• Including the distance markers to aid in understanding

Recommended Enhancements:

• How many yellow dots are behind those purple dots? We can’t tell because there’s no transparency.
• While using a baseball field as a background is cute, no two fields are the same. So, this image shows doubles beyond the field and home runs inside the park.
• The field is on a weird angle. It would be better if home plate was in the 6 o’clock position.
• His 3000th hit is really hard to find. If the author wants to highlight it, then they should make it more prominent.