Teaching:TUW - UE InfoVis WS 2009/10 - Gruppe 12 - Aufgabe 3

Assignment

Description of the second exercise (German)

The Original Charts

Critique of the Given Charts

Visual Design

• Distracting asterisks after titles
• The text formatting isn't consistent througout the document (with and without serifs, capital letters for subtitles, slanted text etc.)
• The needless use of a bubble chart for data which could be communicated more efficiently with a bar chart
• The unnecessary use of arrows instead of simple bars, which don't offer any additional information
• The vertical scale isn't equal on both bar charts in favor for the democrats. The bar charts are therefore not comparable.
• Percentage values, president names and election periods aren't aligned in a line causing difficulties regarding fast horizontal scanning
• The use of vertically aligned text for the bar representing Hoover's return, which is difficult to read
• Data ink ratio is very low due to the unnecessary gradients, lines and redundant information

Content

• The subtitles are just continuations of the titles instead of offering an additional (or alternate) explanation
• The bars could be aligned in a time series for an additional quality of information (e.g. depressions, regressions, etc.)
• The exact dates of the election period of each president are irrelevant information

The Revised Charts

Description of the Undertaken Improvements

Visual Design

• The titles have been capitalized following the rules for any title
• Special considerations have been made regarding the consistency of text formatting to enable fast processing of information
• Text formatting varies according to the degree of importance (e.g. bold percentage values, light gray text color for dates, etc.)
• Light gray guides and a ruler have been plotted to ease the comparison of the bars over a greater distance
• The bubble chart has been replaced with a more sophisticated bar chart to increase comparability and to avoid visual clutter
• Bars have been used instead of arrows to increase the data ink ratio and to avoid visual clutter
• Percentage values, president names and election periods have been aligned in a line to faciliate fast horizontal scanning
• The vertical text has been placed horizontally beneath the respective bar to increase it's readability

Content

• The "subtitles" have been aggregated into the titles
• The bars have been aligned in a time series for an additional quality of information, inherently undermining the problem regarding the unequal vertical scales
• The display of the election period dates of each president have been reduced to years to remove irrelevant information

Links

• InfoVis:Wiki UE Homepage
• UE InfoVis
• Gruppe 12