Comments on: McDonald’s knows how to sell fast food, but they don’t know how to do info viz.

By: John Munoz

John Munoz — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:42:37 +0000

Thanks for the comment Ralph. I think the rhyme and reason about what goes where on these charts may be a mystery for quite some time. Perhaps Steven Few can get some answers at the upcoming JMP conference in Sept where he's the keynote.

By: Ralph Winters

Ralph Winters — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:14:28 +0000

I would also like to know why 11% is posted to the left of the “Carbs” bar, rather than on the right with the rest? Seems like there is enough room.. Now all we have to do is get these incell charts on the water bottles!

-Ralph Winters

By: admin

admin — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:55:34 +0000

Mystery solved! In fact, it was solved way back in 2005.

I dug up a press release from McDonalds from 2005 with no mention of the reference line. Then I found blog post covering this subject which did solve the mystery of the reference line.

Here’s the quote from the blog (emphasis added):
“In Europe, this chart will also show the percentage of the Guideline Daily Amount for each nutrient and a dotted line will mark off a third of the daily recommendation, intended to help customers plan for three balanced meals.”

McDonald’s says they talked with many nutrition experts, academic researchers, and customers about the bar charts. They quote 2 experts saying how clear and easy to understand the graphs are. Too bad they didn’t post a sample to Stephen Few’s discussion board before going to market.

While putting a reference line at 33% makes sense, it needs to be explained on the packaging so that people know what it means.

In addition, Chris Collins also blogged about the incell bar charts in Feb. His post is here.