Different Directions - Bar/Tornado Charts

An interesting graph from the NYT on a survey conducted across several countries  to determine whether the Government over regulates the business in their country. The question asked  in October and November of last year was, “When it comes to government regulation of business, do you think that your government regulates business too much, not enough or the right amount?” 

Some interesting response as can be seen in the graph below; the 'too much'  Republican response in the US [ this despite the economic mess], the 'not enough' response in China and Hong Kong [ now that is a surprise !] , the 'not enough' response in India.  The Indian response is a bit of a mystery - Indians, as far as I know, would prefer lesser interference from the government - which are generally viewed as corrupt irrespective of the party in power.  Makes you wonder whether the sample is representative enough; rural/urban population, different parts of the country. Unlike the US where the population is to a great extent homogeneous, the diversity in India is tremendous.

Personally, I do not want to go back to the Socialist past where the government controlled everything. However, I do feel there is a need for oversight.

Moving away from the political statements and focusing on visual display of the data; there are  some aspects of the chart that I do not like;

1. A tornadoish  chart in the part between 'too much' and 'not enough'  is distracting. The different directions of the bars makes it distracting and makes the comparison between the two bars difficult.   In fact in the first section the opposite direction of the bar for republicans overpowers the rest of the data and makes it difficult to review the rest of the data in that section. The eyes get repeatedly drawn to the Republican response.
2. The data labels are too prominent but necessary nevertheless. 

My version of the chart;

The same direction of the bars makes it easier to review the data presented. Labels are there but these are not over powering. Since the sections are un-stacked visual analysis is easier.


What do you think?

Sunday Brain Teaser - Floating Stuff

The 2011 National Survey of Latinos - lot of data and graphs. Some nice examples and some not so.  Here is one I do not  like. Floating in the air.

The Teaser this week - how can we improve this chart? Can we use another type of graph to present the data more effectively?

Games People Play - Even Judges

Jugalbandi – a performance in Indian Classic Music that features a duet of two solo musicians. What defines Jugalbandi is that the soloists are on equal footing. [Wikipedia ]

Words and Graphs –  they also make music when they work together.  In this post,  however,  they play  a plaintive tune. A particularly egregious game – so many young lives affected by the acts of two corrupt individuals, judges to boot and elected ones at that !!!. 

For us data visualization purveyors a wonderful example of how words and graphs can work together.  The article  and the chart is  from the New York Times – “Despite Red Flagsabout Judges, A Kickback Scheme Flourished” [March 27, 2009, Ian Urbina]

This is how the article starts –

Things were different in the Luzerne County juvenile courtroom, and everyone knew it. Proceedings on average took less than two minutes. Detention center workers were told in advance how many juveniles to expect at the end of each day — even before hearings to determine their innocence or guilt. Lawyers told families not to bother hiring them. They would not be allowed to speak anyway.

“The judge’s whim is all that mattered in that courtroom,” said Marsha Levick, the legal director of the Juvenile Law Center, a child advocacy organization in Philadelphia, which began raising concerns about the court to state authorities in 1999. “The law was basically irrelevant.” 

In what authorities are calling the biggest legal scandal in state history, the two judges pleaded guilty to tax evasion and wire fraud in a scheme that involved sending thousands of juveniles to two private detention centers in exchange for $2.6 million in kickbacks.

The bewilderment, the incredulity, the revulsion   - the words play a perfect note.  

No chart would be able to evoke the emotions  that these word do - Lawyers told families not to bother hiring them  - lawyers !

Then the charts

Excellent chart.  No unnecessary flourishes.  Minimalistic  chart.  

The facts  presented  crisply – the differences between Luzerne and the state brought out starkly. 

Making music together. Words and Charts.

We will explore this jugalbandi  further in coming posts. And we will look at other games too!

Impossible is Nothing

A very important milestone almost passed by me and I believe most is us here in India. Involved in the humdrum busyness of life, we forgot about the health workers who knocked on our doors to enquire whether there was a young baby in the house and whether the baby had been given the vaccine.

The milestone;

No polio incident were recorded in the last one year in India !

It was a tremendous achievement considering the herculean effort that was required to achieve it.

Hats off to these warriors!

A chart showing the  achievement from the Los Angeles Times - 

At the time I was contemplating writing about his, I came across a message on Google+ from  Chris Miller on vaccines and breast milk   in which he takes on anti vaccination goof balls  and castigates this article titled  “CDC researchers say mothers should stop breastfeeding to boost ‘efficacy’ of vaccines.”

But why is this chart and Chris Miller's post of interest to us?

Two reasons;

The chartist would have had the data for other countries where the polio is endemic. Rather than showing the data for all the countries he has focussed on India – no confusing data. You do not have to show all the data that you possess – use data effectively.

Secondly, it is critical for us to read the original report/study rather than depend on what someone else has managed to understand or has purposely manipulated to further his or her cause. I had written about this before in an earlier post on learning techniques – “Misleading Guidance”  

Read Chris’s article yourself and it is important to do so if you have young children.  All that  I will say is “Their recommendation is that the mother delay breast-feeding for a little while beforehand and a little while afterwards, to give the vaccine time to get into the kid before the breast milk neutralizes it all.

Breast feeding is important and so are vaccines ! and yes Chris - cool stuff this - how vaccines work, how breast milk impedes the efficacy and what to do about it!

Sunday Brain Teaser - Redefinition

Redefinition. I hope you have read the article by John Allen Paulos which I had referred to in the last post.  A valuable lesson for us - changing the way a particular item is measured can affect the tend that the chart depicts. Maternal death, Autism are some of the examples that John presents.

I wrote about the deportation of Latinos and discussed the chart published by the Pew Research Center - not a great chart. The redeeming aspect was that a critical aspect was discussed in the report; the fact that the statistical increase could partly be the result of change in the way deportations are computed.

The chart above I believe can be improved in two ways, removing all those data labels and clearly indicating the possible reason of the statistical variance in the graph itself. Here are two alternative presentations we can consider;

or,

The second version is a much cleaner version which clearly brings out, both the overall increase in numbers as well as the increase in non-criminals deported.

Can you think of other alternatives?

Games People Play

A number of them. Insidious ways to beat the system. End justifies the means. Results justifies the deeds. Some of these maneuvers are really sophisticated. Others, plain vanilla technique of bribe giving and taking. I wonder if the sophisticated techniques get considered when they rank countries on corruption on other societal aspects.

But I digress. Our primary interest is visual presentation of data and concepts.

In this post we focus on the visual representation of concepts and relationships and in the process learn a few sophisticated maneuvers; for visual explanations and system manipulation.A fascinating aspect  is that I can recall at least one movie which is based on each of the maneuver. Let us have some fun – see if you can recall these movies.

Complex relationships, concepts, interaction between parts of a system  can be clearly  and succinctly explained  using  visual illustrations. We will review some excellent examples and some not so excellent examples [ From New York Times  / New York  Times Syndicate]. 

Maneuver 1 : Why wait for the rules to be framed.  Get your man/woman on the committee writing the guidelines. Influence the discussion and the ensure that the desired rules are promulgated.  [Movie A below]

A wonderful graphic !!.  It would not be possible to describe  the scenario with such clarity and impact  with just words.  The juxtaposition of the current composition of the groups, depicted visually,  and the ‘favorable’  guidelines issued by similar groups earlier tells a gripping story !!.

Another maneuver - Manipulate the research findings and the technical literature to justify your position, promote your products ……[ Movie B].

 Different parts of a system working together some deliberately  some unknowingly.The sequencing of activities, the role of the participants clearly arranged into ‘swim-lanes’  makes the modus-operandi  easy to follow and understand. Again, such clarity would not be possible using only words.The fascinating aspect is that only a minimal amount of visual elements achieves so much!!

The third maneuver - Using some legal transaction to mask money laundering operations. [Movie C]

The flow-chart type of diagram depicting the movement of second hand cars, the illicit transaction in drugs and the movement of funds and the diversion of  some of these funds provides a crisp and a comprehensible explanation of these transactions. The maneuver of overlaying  the map of the world, provides a nice geographical perspective.

Now for a not so satisfying example – but another ‘clever maneuver’ - Move large amount of funds before declaring bankruptcy.

A simple transaction is visually depicted – an enormous amount of funds were diverted by the fund, MF  Global just before it declared bankruptcy. But it is just a listing  of facts – no complex relationship  / transaction is being depicted – a visual representation is not really necessary. In fact it is distracting.

The excellent examples above highlights situations where  visual representation proves to be a very effective option to helps us clearly explain some complex arrangement – In fact without them it would be difficult to understand the same. Without them, the reader would  in all likelihood sketch the diagrams himself.  

That in fact would be the perfect  question to ask yourself whether a visual representation should be used -  would you sketch  a diagram to make the concept/situation/arrangement  clear to yourself  ?

Movie A : The Runaway Jury  / Movie B : The Fugitive / Movie C : The Firm

Sunday Brain Teaser - Spurious Trends

An inept  chart from the Pew Hispanic Centre report [ Pew Research Centre] on Latinos and Deportations; possibly the chartist could not make up his mind whether to use charts or tables. He ended up using both to produce this visualization;

The brain teaser this week is how to make the chart effective. Give it a shot !

While the visualization is inept there is a redeeming aspect in the report. The redeeming aspect is in a way connected to the following comment from an article [ source below] :  "Often, however, these large changes are spurious, the result of using a flexible yardstick to measure X."  So what could I be referring to? 

  Reader's must always be aware of this aspect  whenever they review the trend over time.   The interesting article from which the comment was taken is  available here. In the detailed report it is referred to here. [ pg. 15 of 66]