Teaching:TUW - UE InfoVis WS 2008/09 - Gruppe 08 - Aufgabe 3
Aufgabenstellung
Zu beurteilende Grafik
Teenage births in rich nations
Criticism
- Organize the Data
First nation mentioned in the graphic are the United States, before alphabetically ordered list of nations is presented. This could be useful if the most viewers of the graphic come from the US. But since this is only an assumption it might be better to put the data for the United States also to their appropriate position in the alphabetic listing.
- The Role of Text
The legend describing the meaning of read circles stands inside the table. Since this might be considered the explanation for the most important data in the graph it might be better to put this legend on top of the graph such that the viewer immediately sees it.
- Subtract unnecessary data ink
Filled circles increase data ink, use unfilled circles instead
- Subtract unnecessary non-data ink
The Shaded rows holding the highest value for each column are not necessary. The red color of the circles focus the viewers attention already to them.
- De-emphasize and regularize the remaining non-data ink
The lines used to split the columns are to strong, use neutral colors as for example a light gray.
Optimized graphic
Teenage births in rich nations
Improvements
References
- [Few 1, 2004] Stephen Few, Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten. Analytics Press, 2004, Chapter 7 - General Design for Communication.
- [Few 2, 2004] Stephen Few, Elegance Through Simplicity. United Business Media LLC, October 16. 2004, http://www.intelligententerprise.com
- [Stanford, 1999] Yoko Mizuno, Josh Sheldon, and Mun-See Tham, Tufte Design Principles. Stanford University, January 26. 1999, http://ldt.stanford.edu