December 6
2017
Maarten
Lambrechts
Eurostat
Luxembourg
16 year old schoolgirl
Addicted to her mobile phone
Assignment on SDG poverty in EU
'Pfff.... Poverty? What do I know about that?'
'What? A scatterplot? I thought someone spilled her latte over that page 😂'
37 years old journalist
Reads 3 economical newspapers each day
Needs story for a special on European SDG targets
'Ok, chef, article will be ready in 2 hours'
'Yes, I'll find the data for the chart to illustrate the article'
What are sustainable development goals?
What is poverty?
Is poverty a big problem in Europe?
Where in Europe is poverty the worst?
What is the goal and how will we reach it?
Is the EU going to reach the poverty SDG?
What aspect of poverty is doing the worst?
Which countries are the worst performers?
What groups of people are most at risk?
Where is the data for my chart?
42 years old business analyst
Consulting for small businesses umbrella organisation
'Where is the data? I need the data!'
'A visualisation is worth a 1000 words'
63 year old professor
Research: 'UK SMEs trade after Brexit'
'Wait, let me get my reading glasses'
'Right mouse click... How do I do that again?'
Where do small enterprises trade the most?
How much do small enterprises import on average?
And in total?
How do enterprises behave on import vs export? Intra-EU vs extra-EU?
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Is Brittish trade very different from other countries trade?
Will SME's suffer more from Brexit than big companies?
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Add a clear and descriptive chart title
Make text run horizontally
Respect hierarchies in the data visually
Be consistent
Avoid log scales, or be very clear about it
Don't cut scales for bars and time scales
Use appropriate chart type
Always show units
Add some absolute numbers to indicate scale
Targets are often the story
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Element of the page a lot of people look at first
Charts should be self sufficient: have a title, units, keys
Don't bury the lead, support it with a visualisation
Ensure good interplay between text and charts
When you use visual language ('clusters', 'outliers', 'big gap', ...), think about making a visualisation
Offer data link in all views
With the different users and their possible questions in mind, answer the following questions:
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When you want to offer quick lookup of values. Use a table for that
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When you don't have a clear goal for the chart. Ask yourself: 'For whom and why am I making this visualisation? What questions does the chart answer?'
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When you have too little data
Horizontal text
Descriptive titles
Units
Meaningful colors
Sorting
Don't cut scales
but dangerous
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Think about how visualization could improve the article.
Consider: