100 places

Oct. 3-9

This interactive graphic ran in Newsweek’s online site. The only credit given is a byline for Fareed Zakaria who wrote the introduction. Nowhere does the web site specify whether Zakaria designed the graphic as well, and there’s no mention of when it was posted.

The strength of this graphic is the incredible photography used to depict each of the 100 places. The quality of the photos will encourage viewers to keep looking through all 100 photos rather than just skimming through a few of them.

The main weakness of this graphic is the lack of information on each of the places. While each photo runs with a caption, it only provides a general location and explanation for why the place is interesting and why it’s endangered. Much more information could be provided for viewers, such as a specific sight at each place or more facts and figures. For instance, #23 is the Great Kordofan Region which “is the world’s biggest single producer of gum arabic,” but in the last “50 years, drought has taken a toll…on the production of gum.” I would like to know more facts and figures like how much gum arabic used to produced? How much is produced now during/after the drought? What is gum arabic used for? Adding this information would add a new dimension and context to the graphic that would inform viewers as well as interest them.

Because the graphic is self-admittedly an “arbitrary…and far from all-inclusive” list, this type of information would add some meat to Zakaria’s claims that these places are worthy of being on his top 100 list.

Another thing I would have liked to see with this graphic is to have the top 100 list organized in some way other than just geographic area. If Zakaria had rated them from 1 to 100, that would have provided an interesting way to view the photos as well. Since Zakaria admits in the introduction that the list is arbitrary, I don’t see that there would have been any harm in admitting a rating from 1 to 100 was arbitrary, too.

The graphic is conveying places around the world that could be on the verge of disappearing for one reason or another due to our endangered planet. While the graphic is short on figures and statistics, it does provide information on a variety of places around the world that many viewers may not know anything about.

Viewers who love to travel will be interested in this graphic. It would also appeal to photographers and those interested in the climate and global warming.

The design of the graphic is mediocre. I like that it shows a map of the world and that map is split into geographic regions with pinpoints for each of the 100 places. But the graphic is not easy to navigate. Clicking on a geographic location brings a pop-up box with the name of the area and a single photo. To view all the places in that geographic location, the viewer must click on the link. This opens a new window with the photos from that area, but the viewer must click on each link to see each separate photo. Not very user-friendly at all.