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Showing posts with label Information is Beautiful. Show all posts

July 19, 2021

#MakeoverMonday 2021 Week 29 - Non-Whites Are At Higher Risk of Dying From COVID-19

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Another COVID-19 data set this week and a great visualization that shows how much more likely ethnic minorities in the UK are to die from COVID.

In the video, I worked through rebuilding the original viz since I liked it so much. Interact with the viz below the video.


September 19, 2016

Makeover Monday: Data breaches are getting bigger and more frequent

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Several people have recommended Makeover Monday for the Project of the Year in the Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards, which I must admit is quite stunning and flattering at the same time. The suggestion for this week’s makeover came from Andy Cotgreave. We intentionally picked something from Information is Beautiful with the hope that it gets a bit more exposure. Shameless perhaps, but what can it hurt? This viz from David McCandless certainly deserves a makeover.


What works well?
  • The viz is eye-catching and definitely draws you in. There’s something to say for that.
  • The interactivity is fantastic.
  • Good filtering, colouring and sizing options

What doesn’t work well?
  • The bubbles move all around for no apparent reason.
  • There’s way too much overlapping, making it hard to identify any insights.
  • Whether something is interesting is extremely subjective. I wouldn’t make these same choices.
  • The viz doesn’t fit in a single view, requiring too much scrolling.
  • Not all records are included. I guess this was done for artistic purposes as David is known to do, but it distorts the message.

I decided to work on my makeover during my flight to Prague, thus imposing a time limit on me. I started by creating a view that simply shows the number of data breaches by year using circles. This basically flattens out the original.


While this shows the distribution nicely, I don’t love it. Next, I converted the circles to squares, hoping the result would be more visually impactful as the squares take up more space.


This is definitely better, however I don’t like how it doesn’t incorporate the records stolen in each data breach well enough for my liking. So I decided to add a dot for every breach in the data set and change the location of each dot to the number of records stolen.


Getting there…iterating is really helpful. This shows some of the outliers really well, but I feel like I’ve lost the distribution a bit. I decided to quickly open the data in Vizable and when I switch the view to records stolen by year, Vizable presented me this interesting view that shows the median and the distribution.


I really liked this so I decided to build upon it in Tableau. My final viz incorporates the view from Vizable, the distribution of each data breach and allows me to focus the story on data breaches that were hacks versus not hacks.

Click to view interactive version

I find this final view much, much easier to look at than the original and also it provides much better context. For me, context is key. Every visualisation you create should include context somehow. Why? Context makes it much easier for your audience to understand the story.

January 6, 2012

Information is Beautiful? Only if you like a totally useless mess of nothingness

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I have a problem with David McCandless of Information is Beautiful.  From his own website he says:

A passion of mine is visualizing information – facts, data, ideas, subjects, issues, statistics, questions – all with the minimum of words.

I’m interested in how designed information can help us understand the world, cut through BS and reveal the hidden connections, patterns and stories underneath. Or, failing that, it can just look cool!

So let’s look at a couple of these statements in the context of his latest infographic. 

 

Has David met any of his own criteria?  Let’s check.

  1. Minimum of words – No! All this infographic contains is words…horrible!
  2. Facts – Maybe. If you consider a bunch of words facts, then I guess he meets this criteria.
  3. Data – No, not even close
  4. Ideas – No, nothing that I can see
  5. Can help us understand – No, not for me
  6. Reveal the hidden connections, patterns and stories – No, absolutely not!
  7. It can just look cool – Seriously?

To summarize, this is one of the worst infographics I’ve EVER seen.  Shouldn’t we expect better from an “expert”?  It’s impossible to gleam even the slightest bit of insight or data outside two things: nationality and that the album falls somewhere in the top 21. 

How am I supposed to deduce the rank?  The size?  The width? The font? The location?  I have no idea and no one else will likely know either.  Throw me a bone and at least give me some type of instructions for making sense of this mess.

And another thing.  Why the top 21?  At first, I thought the list only went to 21, but Metacritic.com lists the top 30.  And four albums are tied for 20th.  The top 21 makes no sense whatsoever!  Maybe David likes blackjack?

Let’s consider the definition of an infographic from Wikipedia (not the defining source, I know).  I’ve bolded what I consider the key points.

Information graphics or infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge. These graphics present complex information quickly and clearly.

Did David meet any of these criteria?

  1. Graphic visual representation – No, he merely created a wordle.
  2. Present complex information quickly and clearly – No. I can’t garner any insights quickly and clearly.  Can you?

Ok, you can tell that I think his work is a totally useless mess.  But how would I present the data to allow for quick and clear insights?  I’d use Tableau.

My viz may not be an “infographic” in its purest sense since it doesn’t have all of the cute pictures, figurines, and unnecessary clutter, but I have met David’s criteria, the criteria for an infographic, plus much more.

  1. Graphic visual representation – Check
  2. Present complex information quickly and clearly – Check
  3. Minimum of words – Check
  4. Facts – Check
  5. Data – Check
  6. Ideas – Check 
  7. Can help us understand – Check
  8. Reveal the hidden connections, patterns and stories – Check
  9. It can just look cool – Check

But Tableau let’s you go above and beyond.

  • Interact with the filters and highlighting
  • Change the Points Type
  • Filter and/or highlight nationalities
  • The data is ALWAYS ranked based on the selections you make

I’m sick and tired and tired and sick of seeing useless infographics like this one.  I won’t keep my finger crossed that they’re going away anytime soon though.

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