Choosing Charts with Thomas Powell - tpowell@ucsd.edu We Got Categories We Got a List We Got a Flow Chart to Use Another Chart Chooser Poster! Choosing Charts Cards! Choosing Charts Programs Choosing Charts Parting Thoughts Be Careful when choosing chart types Choosing Charts Exploring Types Here we take a simple data set and see how we might chart and style it Note we do some wrong things and some right things The chart types made are not meant to be some ideal, but demonstrate ideas and prompt discussion Most demos made in Keynote, PowerPoint or Google Slides but the point is not tool but result! Choosing Charts Very Simple Data Set Some Fake Poll data of 200 voters preferences. Table 1 April May June July Democrat 17 26 53 96 Republican 55 43 70 58 Undecided 128 131 77 46 Let’s plot it! Choosing Charts Don’t Accept the Defaults 140 105 70 35 0 April May June I can’t read this! Choosing Charts July Better? 140 105 70 35 0 April May June What is this? July Better? Republican Title Democrat Undecided 140 105 70 35 0 April May June What’s Happening? Collided objects! July Better? Survey of San Diego Voter Preferences April to July 2020 Democrat Republican Undecided 140 105 70 35 0 April May June Titled and some layout July Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat 140 Republican Undecided 105 70 35 0 April May June Colors, editorialized title/subtitle, text treatments July Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat 100 Republican 75 50 25 0 April May June July Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 Data: q2_2020.csv Source, data transparency, data omission Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat 140 Republican Undecided 105 70 35 0 April May June July Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 Data: q2_2020.csv v1.0 070420 Data returns with new style, versioning info Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat 140 Republican Undecided 105 70 35 0 April Credit: May Thomas A. Powell, UCSD Authorship June July Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 Data: q2_2020.csv v1.0 070420 Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat Republican Undecided Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 Data: q2_2020.csv v1.0 070420 3D with some awareness Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat Republican Undecided Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 Data: q2_2020.csv v1.0 070420 3D with no awareness Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Undecided 140 Democrat Republican 105 70 35 0 April May June July Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 Data: q2_2020.csv v1.0 070420 Wrong type? Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat Republican Undecided 140 105 70 35 0 April May June July Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 Data: q2_2020.csv v1.0 070420 Better type Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat Republican Undecided 140 105 70 35 0 April May June July Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 Data: q2_2020.csv v1.0 070420 Clustering improved by space Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Undecided Republican Democrat 140 105 70 35 0 April May June July Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 Data: q2_2020.csv v1.0 070420 Editorializing via order Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat 200 Republican Undecided 150 100 50 0 April May June July Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 Data: q2_2020.csv v1.0 070420 Stack shows part of whole, but continuous is wrong Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat Republican Undecided Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 Data: q2_2020.csv v1.0 070420 Made it look ‘cool,’ but still the continuous part is wrong Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat Republican Undecided April May June July 0 50 100 150 200 Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 Data: q2_2020.csv v1.0 070420 More appropriate stack style Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat Republican Undecided Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 Data: q2_2020.csv v1.0 070420 Making it cooler? Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat Republican Undecided Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 Data: q2_2020.csv v1.0 070420 Making it cooler? Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat Republican Undecided 200 150 100 50 0 April May June July Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 Data: q2_2020.csv v1.0 070420 Column stack is probably more appropriate Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat Republican Undecided Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 Data: q2_2020.csv v1.0 070420 Cool column stack? Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat 9% Republican Undecided 13% 28% 64% 22% 66% April May 27% 23% 48% 39% 35% June 29% July Pies might work but … Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat Republican April May June July Undecided Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 No 3D pies please! Data: q2_2020.csv v1.0 070420 Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat Republican 9% April 13% 28% 64% May 22% July 48% 66% 27% 39% Undecided 23% June 35% 29% Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 Data: q2_2020.csv v1.0 070420 If you had to maybe rings but please no… Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat 9% April 64% Republican Undecided 13% 27% 39% 28% May 22% 23% June July 66% 35% 48% 29% Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 Data: q2_2020.csv v1.0 070420 Probably the best you can do with pie/ring Animated The next examples are animated so they won’t be useful as static slides but they use animations to tell the story from April to June The impact might be bigger but you force people to remember what you saw. If the final point is all that matters that might be satisfactory. Choosing Charts Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat 140 Republican Undecided 105 70 35 0 Democrat Republican Undecided April Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 Data: q2_2020.csv v1.0 070420 Democratic Surge Amongst Undecided Voters Party preference of 200 undecided voters in San Diego County Democrat Republican Undecided Democrat Republican Undecided 0 35 70 April 105 Source: Fake poll conducted from April to July 4 Data: q2_2020.csv v1.0 070420 140 PowerPoint Examples The exercise wouldn’t be that diļ¬erent in PowerPoint. As a comparison here is a roughly similar version. Choosing Charts PowerPoint Take Aways Some things weren’t possible in Keynote that were easily done in PowerPoint Choosing Charts PowerPoint Take Aways •More chart types! •Some things like annotations / text boxes not as easy as should be •More configuration possibilities (though quite hidden) •Excel editing would seem a plus compared to Numbers, but in my practice it hung a lot •UX of the product was not good •Default look and feel is “meh” Choosing Charts Google Charts •Even less capable than Keynote/Numbers or Excel/ Powerpoint •Special things it could do that those tools couldn’t do easily •Easier distribution online though! Choosing Charts Tool Wind Down We can look at other tools and the story is the same Some tools will have ease of use while others might have volume of features Some tools might be more specialized to viz or even a particular application of viz while others are more general purpose Focus more on what we make not how Choosing Charts Some Evaluations Now that we know about picking types, their various parts and how we used some tools and made some results let’s try our hand at looking a few charts and see what we see right and wrong and what we might fix. Choosing Charts Let’s Discuss Choosing Charts Better? Aug 2016 Projected July 2014 Choosing Charts Let’s Discuss Choosing Charts Let’s Discuss Obviously things are too small What is our eye doing with the red bars? If purpose is just outlier spikes might this still work? Choosing Charts Summary Choosing charts can follow a prescribed method The data can deeply inform what we want to do to communicate clearly However, there is some subjectivity of choice and style is quite open to interpretation Try to understand the tool is rarely the point, but the result created Choosing Charts
