Economic Outlook

This graphic ran on the USA Today web site. While it doesn’t have a date that it was created or posted, it does list the source of the information as HIS Global Insight. Barbara Hansen and Juan Thomassie are credited with creating the graphic.

One of the strengths of this graphic is the way it moves. I found myself clicking through the different indicators to see it. Without the movement, I’m not sure I would have been interested enough in the information to go through each indicator. Another strength of the graphic is that it does a good job comparing the HIS Global Insight Economic Outlook Index to the separate indicators. The bar graph is an easy visual tool to help viewers quickly grasp the general concept.

The information graphic is trying to show the economic outlook by comparing the GDP to its 11 component indicators. The interactive bar graph provides data from 2002 to the present in each. While I understand what this information graphic is trying to convey, I don’t know enough about the GDP to truly understand all this graphic. If the creators intended for this graphic to inform the average viewer, they should have included more explanations of the GDP and indicators.

For example, each indicator has something similar to a definition to explain it, and the creators did a great job of explaining “what it means” to the economy. However, I’m not entirely sure if the bottom bar graph that shows these indicators is a completely separate thing from the top GDP graph, or if the GDP graph is a composite of all 11 indicators, or if the GDP represents the “economic forecast” and the bottom graph shows the reality. Again, if the creators wanted this graphic to appeal to and explain information to the average viewer, they should have made it a little clearer to those of us who don’t have much of an economic background.

The design of the graphic is effective and helps viewers visually understand the overall concept. The bar graph was a smart decision to use when discussing amounts. It’s very easy to see the yellow bars above 0 show growth and the red bars below 0 show a drop in percentage. It’s also very easy to visualize how much or how little growth occurred from one year to the next with the bar graph.

The graphic is interactive in that viewers can click on each of the 11 indicators to see the definition and 8-year trend of each. The interactivity is simple to use and easy to understand.

Top 100 Countries

This information graphic appeared on Newsweek.com. Nowhere on the graphic or the page does it say when this graphic was created or posted (I saw it on Monday, September 20), but it does specify that it is a “Newsweek study” and that Thomas Klepl created the interactive design and programming, and Adam Clarkson wrote the creative lead. This shows that there was not one informational architect in charge of the graphic. Instead, the parts of the graphic were divided into a reporter and a designer.

One of the big strengths of this graphic is the column on the far right titled, “How to use this interactive.” This how-to list, gives five bulleted tips on how to use and understand the information in this graphic. Without these tips, the graphic would have confused me and I wouldn’t have known all the different types of information the graphic included. The weakness of the graphic is that the creators didn’t explain how they scored each of the countries. For instance, the Overall Education score for the United States is 89.44. The graphic also specifies that the Literacy Rate is 99.0% and the average years of schooling is 15.8. However, the graphic does not say how the score of 89.44 was figured. This failure to explain how Newsweek decided on the overall scores lessens the credibility of the information found in the graphic.

The information graphic is trying to convey the 100 best countries in the world based on education, health, quality of life, economic dynamism and political environment. The graphic also makes it easy to compare the scores of one country to another. It’s easy to compare low-income countries to high-income countries and small populations to large populations. The graphic even makes it easy to compare countries based on their geographic locations.

The graphic really needs to include the scoring system Newsweek used to create this graphic so viewers can truly understand how these scores came about rather than looking at what seem to be random numbers. Another thing that would enhance this informational graphic is a better way to see all of the scores and ratings for one country at the same time. Right now, if you click on a country in the interactive graphic, it highlights each overall score on the graphic, but it does not bring up the overall scores and information.

This graphic is interesting for people to compare places they have lived or want to live. There are people from all over the world who have commented on this graphic either praising the high ranking of their country or complaining the low ranking of their country. I think it’s also important to note that some people who commented also recognized that it’s very difficult to rate many items that depend on personal preference.

The design of this graphic is pretty effective with a lot of information in one place. A few additions (separate graphic for each country and explanation of the scoring system) would make this design even better. The explanation on the right of how to use this graphic is essential to viewer understanding. It makes the graphic easy to use and understand.

Interactive Poll on Drink Tax

This interactive poll ran on my local paper's website (http://www.enterprisepub.com/). This one, again, did not specify who created it or when, so I'm assuming the local newspaper staff did recently. I saw it on the website beginning September 14. However, I'm surprised at how often the graphics I see online don't mention who created them or when they were created. This is something I make my journalism students do all the time.

The strength of this piece is that it deals with a current and local topic that affects nearly everyone who will read this online paper. The photo that appears at the top of the poll is a visual that attracts viewers to the text below. The weakness of the piece is that, as a poll, it doesn't really impart much solid information. Some of the options to choose in the poll are not very helpful or informational. Some of the options are amusing, but they don't tell me how people feel about the topic. That should be the whole purpose behind an interactive poll.

This poll does inform viewers that there is a new city tax on dining, drinking, and catering, but most local viewers will already know that. This information graphic is short on the information end. Even an interactive poll can and should inform readers.

One way to enhance and improve this interactive poll would be to include better options for viewers to choose. Like I mentioned before, while some of the options are amusing, they aren't informative and don't tell us how people feel about the tax. Each of the six options is negative. While I agree it's safe to say that a vast majority of people are not for teh taxes, it defeats the purpose of an interactive poll to only show one side. Additional options that show a variety of opinions would enhance this graphic and make it more informational and accurate.

This interactive poll is intended for a local audience in a city just outside of Omaha because one of the options says, "Just another reason not to go to Omaha." The local online paper will draw mostly local readers.

The design of the poll is effective if not dazzling. The photo at the top of the poll draws attention, while the blue question stands out to viewers. The simple buttons on the bottom to "vote" or "view results" are simple and easy to understand and use. Overall, this is an example of a graphic that is "pretty" but has no useful information for readers. It was definitely not created by an information architect.

NU Husker football graphic

This graphic ran on the Omaha World Herald’s website on their “Big Red Today” link that covers all Nebraska sports. The graphic doesn’t specify a specific person who created it, but it does say that all information was based on Huskers.com rosters and local reports. It also doesn’t say when this page was created or last updated. The link was on the main Big Red page the afternoon of Tuesday, Sept. 14, but was moved later that evening when I looked again.

The strength of this piece is its simplicity and easy usability. The text on the left of the graphic does a great job of explaining what the information means, where the information is from and how to use the graphic to find what you want. The color-coding on the map gives viewers a quick idea of the information to be gathered. Another strength of the piece is the fact that you can interact with the map in three different ways: moving around the map, selecting the year, or searching for a name. This way, the graphic doesn’t overwhelm viewers with too much information at one time.

This graphic has so much information that, if done poorly, it would be completely overwhelming and confusing. This graphic is informing viewers about where Husker football players have come from since 1996. It shows that a majority of the players are from Nebraska, but that the Huskers have had football players from most states over the years. If viewers click on a state, they can see a secondary graphic that lists the players’ names, positions, heights, weights, hometowns and the year they began playing for Nebraska. If viewers click on a year, they can see a secondary graphic that shows the map for that year along with a list of the players and their statistics for that year. If you click on a specific player’s name, it even takes you to yet another graphic that shows you statistics and a photo of the player.

I’m not sure there’s much that good be added to this graphic. One thing they don’t have yet (but say they are working on) is adding a biography of each player. It would be nice to see a list of athletic and/or academic awards from high school and college, where they are now and what they are doing, etc.

Any fan of Husker football will find this graphic interesting. I found myself scrolling through states and years, remembering players I had forgotten and comparing heights and weights from some of the players I did remember.

This information graphic is designed very effectively. It is easy to understand and find the mountains of information in this one interactive graphic. Viewers will have no trouble navigating through the information. The usability makes this graphic effective. With the amount of information here, a bad design or bad organization would ruin it. It’s obvious someone who understands “information architecture” designed this interactive information graphic.

USA Today housing graphic

This information graphic appeared on the USA Today website on Aug. 25, accompanying a story on the decline of home sales. While it doesn’t specify who created the table, it tells readers that the source of the information is the National Association of Realtors. The website also says to contact Standards Editor Brent Jones for corrections or clarifications.

The strength of this information graphic lies in its simplicity. Readers can easily understand the information because numbers are labeled and aligned neatly. The lack of artistic design and visual appeal in the graphic might be considered a weakness. But the lack of visual gimmicks makes the graphic easier to read and understand.

The graphic shows how much home prices have dropped in the last year in major cities across the country. It also shows the drop in home sales over the last year in those major cities. The graphic contains a lot of information, but it is easily understood because of the organization.

Organizing the cities differently would enhance this graphic. Wurman mentions different ways of organizing information graphics in his article: location, alphabet, time, category and hierarchy. The designer of this graphic listed the cities in alphabetical order, but that would have been one of my last choices. The designer could have grouped cities based on location, so readers could compare cities in their region. The graphic could have organized the cities based on category by grouping cities whose home sale prices have dropped 0-2% and those that have dropped 2-4%, etc. The graphic also could have grouped the cities based on hierarchy, listing them from highest to lowest in terms of price drops over the last year. All these different organizations would allow readers to better compare the information.

Any readers interested in the economy or trying to buy or sell a home will look at this graphic when they come across it. While the graphic is not visually stunning, it presents such a wealth of information in such an understandable way that any average reader will spend a minute or two learning about the drop in home sales.

Because this information graphic is simple and easy to understand, it is an effective design. It would be even more effective with a little different organization, but it still explains the information sufficiently. This graphic is a great example of how the news and information (the narrative) should be the driving focus of a graphic rather than the visual gimmicks that are the focus of so many designers.

NY Times political graphic

This information graphic accompanied a story on the New York Times web site on Friday, Sept. 10. All the information graphics on this web page were created by the blog FiveThirtyEight, a blog “devoted to the rigorous analysis of politics…” Overall, this information graphic fails its purpose of explaining information in a way that the average reader can easily understand.

The information graphic has very few, if any, strengths. One of the weaknesses is that it doesn’t explain what the numbers along the bottom of the graph mean. I guess the numbers probably refer to the phrase “this many seats” written in the top left, but it makes very little sense in the context of this graphic. The main reason this information graphic is weak is because it fails to explain information in a simple way.

At first glance, it appears easy to read as a simple graph; however, after studying it at some length, I still can’t explain what it is trying to tell me. I believe the overall point of the graphic is to show that it is more likely the Republicans will control the House after the November elections. The graphic is very confusing because of the division between Republican and Democratic control at the bottom of the graph and the different shadings.

Focusing on only one political party in the information graphic would help eliminate this confusion. Another option would be to split it into two separate graphics. Because the division between Republican and Democratic control in the graphic confuses me, it would help if there were two separate graphics or only one political party.

Since the graphic has little to no explanation, the intended audience is probably readers who already know quite a bit about politics and the upcoming elections. Another reason I believe the intended audience is people who already know and are interested in politics is because there is very little artistic design to make the graphic appealing. Readers who aren’t interested in politics will not spend much time looking at or trying to interpret this information graphic.

The design for this graphic is not effective because it doesn’t help explain the information. Furthermore, there is nothing interesting or eye-catching about the design. While the focus should be a design that explains, the visual appeal of the design shouldn’t be ignored either. Unfortunately, this information graphic falls short on both design and information.