http://forums.flowingdata.com/ Strength in Numbers en Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:38:32 +0000 http://forums.flowingdata.com/topic/nonprofit-looking-to-improve-data-charts#post-2184 Wed, 20 Apr 2011 21:04:45 +0000 caredwen 2184@http://forums.flowingdata.com/ <p>Tyson - I see your point about "lineyness". One of the challenges is ensuring that we appropriately emphasize the broad comparative group. The way I see it, the two most important pieces of information on the chart are the funder's current average and the overall median, so I want to make it as easy as possible for a viewer to make that comparison. You're right that it gives one a lot to look at, though. Do you have suggestions for ways to make this comparison pop without cluttering the field too much? Perhaps just a bigger box plot? :-)</p> <p>On the same subject -- I like box plots, but for the smaller cohort they are challenging, because those cohorts tend to be relatively small (comprising between 12 and 20 funders). Showing the interquartile range of a small group like that may be too much information relative to just showing the max, min, and median - one set of quartiles may be enough for a viewer to contend with... </p> http://forums.flowingdata.com/topic/nonprofit-looking-to-improve-data-charts#post-2182 Tue, 19 Apr 2011 14:06:31 +0000 tyson 2182@http://forums.flowingdata.com/ <p>Your new chart is clearer than the first, but I still think it's confusing. First off it's a little too "liney." All the lines compete with each other and it's hard to pick out what's important. Let me illustrate:</p> <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/63648197@N00/5635541664/" title="5632037355_a34a8a8a36_b by fotoman607, on Flickr" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5142/5635541664_06349e14bd.jpg" width="481" height="500" alt="5632037355_a34a8a8a36_b" /></a></p> <p>When you simplify your chart down to shapes you should be able to pick out what you want to be most important and relevant to your viewers. When looking at yours nothing seems to really stand out from the rest of the chart which makes it hard for your viewers to figure out what they should be looking at.</p> <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/63648197@N00/5635539524/" title="funders_thresh by fotoman607, on Flickr" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5109/5635539524_1e676c2485.jpg" width="500" height="400" alt="funders_thresh" /></a></p> <p>This one is much clearer because at first glance you can immediately tell what shapes you should be looking at.</p> <p>Second, is there a reason against using box plots? It seems to me that if you are trying to show a median, range, and middle 50% the box plot would be the best way to go. A box plot would also show outliers, bringing more information into the chart. I can see arguments against using them because they might be above the level of understanding of your viewers (I work for a newspaper and probably wouldn't be able to use them). On the other hand you are already basically showing everything a box plot shows but by drawing all those line across the chart you really busy things up. I guess you have you ask yourself if you can count on your viewers to read between the lines (literally) and do without the lines running all the way across or keep the lines in there and risk having more viewers not understand the chart at all.</p> <p>Also, as Thorri also did in his chart I think that since your data for "foundation X" is time based it should be shown in sequence connected with a line. Stacking them on top of each other, although it takes up less space completely removes the ability of your viewers to see the change of the data over time. However, the dots that show the programs can be left stacked up because they do not have a sequence.</p> <p>Finally, Joshua brings up a good point in that instead of rethinking how to redraw the chart you already have to be a little more understandable, it might be more helpful to start from scratch. Go back to your core data and pick out what exactly you want the chart to show and there might be a better way to do it. </p> http://forums.flowingdata.com/topic/nonprofit-looking-to-improve-data-charts#post-2181 Mon, 18 Apr 2011 18:53:18 +0000 Joshua de Haseth 2181@http://forums.flowingdata.com/ <p>Hi,</p> <p>I don't know precisely what data you got, but if you got data by time I would try to use the data in the context of time.</p> <p>As we all know one year of data (or one data point in a year) is pretty dangerous to work with. Ok you can compare the performance of one fund to all the others and a subgroup, but only for one year. What if something remarkable happened to all the others except your fund, if you see the results you will go crazy and will try to do anything to get back in line with the others. But if you see that years results in comparison to the other years it seems that something out of the ordinary has happened. This also could mean you have to take action, but your reaction is of a totally different kind (I hope I'm clear enough).</p> <p>This is just an example ofcourse. I just want to make a point that trend data is probably a better way to go, if available.</p> <p>In a line diagram you can fit all the info in you already got. You can still compare your fund to the range of all funders (grey area), the middle 50% (between dashed lines), the range of cohort funders (vertical lines at each year), the median and the three different programs. And all this for all the years next to each other, so much more information. To make this example clearer you could experiment with the colours and labels ofcourse.</p> <p>At first it looks like a lot of lines, but reading the labels connected to the lines this should clear up pretty fast.</p> <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/61891160@N07/5633130522/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/61891160@N07/5633130522/</a> </p> http://forums.flowingdata.com/topic/nonprofit-looking-to-improve-data-charts#post-2180 Mon, 18 Apr 2011 15:30:44 +0000 caredwen 2180@http://forums.flowingdata.com/ <p>I'm the research analyst Kevin mentioned in his above post, and Tyson, I thought your suggestion of segmenting the data more horizontally was really helpful. I adapted it a little, below. The modifications I made in this design served two purposes:</p> <p>1.) to make the current average rating the most salient piece of information on the chart<br /> 2.) to play up the overall comparative cohort more, relative to the smaller comparative cohort</p> <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/61912578@N04/5632037355/" title="new+chart+1 (1) by caredwen, on Flickr" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5267/5632037355_a34a8a8a36.jpg" width="481" height="500" alt="new+chart+1 (1)" /></a></p> <p>Thoughts, critiques, other suggestions?</p> <p>p.s. I'd also like to second Kevin's thanks to the community - it's been a pleasure reading through these thoughtful contributions! </p> http://forums.flowingdata.com/topic/nonprofit-looking-to-improve-data-charts#post-2179 Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:24:16 +0000 kmbolduc 2179@http://forums.flowingdata.com/ <p>Wow, folks, thanks so much for the feedback. Every post has been immensely helpful. I am so excited by all these sketches and mock-ups. I'm also realizing that my goal to condense everything into less space is taking away from the understandability of the charts. </p> <p>I love the granularity of the normal curve. And tyson's suggestion has gotten me thinking about what info we could also just put in a tiny table next to the primary info in the graph. (One of our research analysts was so enthused by Tyson's concept that she's playing around with it now. I'll have her post her take on this as well.)</p> <p>The next step is for us to present some mock-ups to our advisory board in the beginning of May. I'll continue to monitor this post in case others have further suggestions, and I'll post the mock-ups we prepare for the advisory board.</p> <p>This blog and its community is fantastic. Thank you! </p> http://forums.flowingdata.com/topic/nonprofit-looking-to-improve-data-charts#post-2175 Fri, 15 Apr 2011 06:15:06 +0000 Thorri 2175@http://forums.flowingdata.com/ <p>Yup, I think Tyson nailed it. I'd go with that. </p> http://forums.flowingdata.com/topic/nonprofit-looking-to-improve-data-charts#post-2174 Fri, 15 Apr 2011 03:00:56 +0000 tyson 2174@http://forums.flowingdata.com/ <p>I feel like your chart is so compressed you can't make any meaningful comparisons between the data because you get lost. Here is my quick attempt at cleaning things up a little:</p> <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/63648197@N00/5620837485/" title="funders by fotoman607, on Flickr" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5183/5620837485_6a0da5b962.jpg" width="500" height="400" alt="funders" /></a></p> <p>- I used boxplots to show both sets of your funders. A little different than how you were doing it but boxplots are something that more people have seen before so it's easier to understand the chart at first glance. It's also much cleaner in my opinion.</p> <p>- Because you want to make comparisons between all the data I kept everything in one chart using a common axis. Because you had separate categories of data I split the one chart into separate panes. This allows you to make comparisons between the data, but not get lost in it.</p> <p>- My chart could definitely be squished up a bit horizontally if you needed to make it smaller (might even look better that way). </p> http://forums.flowingdata.com/topic/nonprofit-looking-to-improve-data-charts#post-2173 Thu, 14 Apr 2011 22:03:41 +0000 nathany 2173@http://forums.flowingdata.com/ <p>Wow actual sketches and mockups. You guys are awesome. </p> http://forums.flowingdata.com/topic/nonprofit-looking-to-improve-data-charts#post-2171 Thu, 14 Apr 2011 18:05:32 +0000 Thorri 2171@http://forums.flowingdata.com/ <p>I think it would help not to try to put all of this into one type of chart. Also within one chart, to seperate the data to avoid confusion.</p> <p>Below is a link to my sketch. I think the data may even be seperated further. (I'm thinking of the Arts/Education/Health points).</p> <p>Hope this helps :)</p> <p><a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/65944/CEP.png" rel="nofollow">http://dl.dropbox.com/u/65944/CEP.png</a> </p> http://forums.flowingdata.com/topic/nonprofit-looking-to-improve-data-charts#post-2170 Thu, 14 Apr 2011 15:40:36 +0000 sacoope 2170@http://forums.flowingdata.com/ <p>I think the first step is to try and get rid of the legend and incorporate it in to the visual. The shapes and colors aren't a bad idea, but the viewer has to reference back and forth between the chart and the legend - which may ultimately lead to confusion.</p> <p>Have you thought about using a labeled distribution curve? Depending on the audience this may look a bit too technical, but it provides an easy way to label in a more user friendly manner. I've attached a link to a quick sketch-up I did (based on a normal distribution - your data may not look like this). Please ignore the lack of formatting and coloring - just trying to give a concept :-)</p> <p>Hope this helps!</p> <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/61747317@N05/5620242624/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/61747317@N05/5620242624/</a> </p> http://forums.flowingdata.com/topic/nonprofit-looking-to-improve-data-charts#post-2168 Thu, 14 Apr 2011 13:10:07 +0000 kmbolduc 2168@http://forums.flowingdata.com/ <p>At the heart of our work at the <a>Center for Effective Philanthropy</a> (CEP) is the provision of comparative data that allows one funder to understand how aspects of its own performance compare to the other funders. In much of our work, the manifestation of that activity is charts in our reports that display the comparative data. I’d like to ask your advice in making CEP’s data display stronger. </p> <p>The Center for Effective Philanthropy’s mission is to provide data and create insight so philanthropic funders can better define, assess, and improve their effectiveness – and, as a result, their intended impact. We’re a nonprofit organization based in Cambridge, working many of the largest philanthropic funders in the country.</p> <p>Here are two examples of the way our charts look now.<br /> <a href="http://www.effectivephilanthropy.org/assets/blog/chart1.2.png" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.effectivephilanthropy.org/assets/blog/chart1blog.png" alt="" width="480" height="290" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.effectivephilanthropy.org/assets/blog/chart2.2.jpg" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.effectivephilanthropy.org/assets/blog/chart2blog.png" alt="" width="480" height="290" /></a></p> <p>We’ve tweaked these charts here and there over the past few years, but we still hear from some funders, and in our 3rd party feedback, that these charts can be tough to understand. On the other hand, some of the funders we work with love these for the amount of information they pack into a small space. </p> <p>We think we can improve these charts. Although any change may not be immediate, we want to brainstorm now some other possibilities. </p> <p>Fundamentally, any data display we use has to meet just a few basic parameters. It must:<br /> • display comparative context so that one funder can consider its relative results compared to our database of others’ results<br /> • simultaneously display both an absolute scale and relative results (because both are necessary pieces of information in interpreting results)<br /> • be flexible enough to display a potential segmentation of the overall data, display trend data, and (probably) also a sub-group comparison – a cohort from among the full dataset</p> <p>This blog is one that we follow and often discuss as a staff at CEP. We’re huge fans of interesting data visualization, and we admire the ideas and examples posted in this blog. It hit us recently that you all might have some incredible ideas about our work. We’d welcome the advice. Or if the community has advice about a great data visualization expert have worked with, that would be fantastic too. (This is too small a project for the couple we’ve reached out to.)</p> <p>What’s in it for you? The knowledge that you aided CEP in its efforts to help foundations become more effective. And, if we choose an idea you suggested, a very public and grateful acknowledgement for your efforts and ideas.</p> <p>Thanks in advance for your help. </p> http://forums.flowingdata.com/topic/improving-a-project#post-2095 Fri, 11 Feb 2011 08:46:59 +0000 RankingAmerica 2095@http://forums.flowingdata.com/ <p>I've maintained a blog called "Ranking America" (<a href="http://rankingamerica.wordpress.com" rel="nofollow">http://rankingamerica.wordpress.com</a>) since late 2008. It's gotten noticed a bit, and I've provided some of my graphics to Newsweek. My project provides useful information, but I also see it as something of a conceptual art piece in my tightly controlled writing and in the seemingly endless number of rankings I provide (700+ to date). I want to improve the look of the charts, but I'm not a tech guy and I rely on what excel can do for me. I'm open to any suggestions about how to improve the look of what I'm doing. </p> http://forums.flowingdata.com/topic/interesting-charts#post-1201 Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:50:26 +0000 vincentg64 1201@http://forums.flowingdata.com/ <p>227 pictures / maps / charts posted on Analytcbridge:<br /> URL: <a href="http://www.analyticbridge.com/photo" rel="nofollow">http://www.analyticbridge.com/photo</a> </p> http://forums.flowingdata.com/topic/user-interface-to-help-with-google-charts-api#post-610 Tue, 07 Apr 2009 06:17:43 +0000 flexnj 610@http://forums.flowingdata.com/ <p>For people looking for a free ajax chart api, I recently ran into another offering at <a href="http://chart.inetsoft.com" rel="nofollow">http://chart.inetsoft.com</a>. It looks quite interesting and seems to support more types of charts with a large ajax api. Worth a look. </p> http://forums.flowingdata.com/topic/user-interface-to-help-with-google-charts-api#post-609 Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:47:55 +0000 nathany 609@http://forums.flowingdata.com/ <p>I'm not a fan, but in you're interested, here's a UI to help you figure out what you want out of the Google Charts API:</p> <p><a href="http://www.clabberhead.com/googlechartgenerator.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.clabberhead.com/googlechartgenerator.html</a> </p> http://forums.flowingdata.com/topic/bar-charts-place-labels-inside-or-outside-the-bars#post-42 Sun, 27 Jul 2008 19:03:06 +0000 hadley 42@http://forums.flowingdata.com/ <p>I'm opposed to putting them outside bars - my feeling is that it distorts the visual perception of length. I don't have any evidence to back that up, however. </p> http://forums.flowingdata.com/topic/bar-charts-place-labels-inside-or-outside-the-bars#post-38 Sat, 26 Jul 2008 08:54:02 +0000 nathany 38@http://forums.flowingdata.com/ <p>well, i'm not so sure tufte would say that. w/o the numbers, you can see the patterns, but you need the numbers for a sense of scale. as for inside vs outside, it's just one of those things that's going to vary by graph. </p> http://forums.flowingdata.com/topic/bar-charts-place-labels-inside-or-outside-the-bars#post-37 Fri, 25 Jul 2008 03:58:07 +0000 charliepark 37@http://forums.flowingdata.com/ <p>In displaying a bar chart, I see three options for explicitly including the item-by-item data:<br /> 1) not including any specific data values<br /> 2) printing the data values on the outside of the bar<br /> 3) printing the data values inside the bar</p> <p><strong>Example of "outside the bar":</strong><br /> <img src="http://flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/david-530x386.png" /></p> <p><strong>Example of "inside the bar":</strong><br /> <img src="http://www.candychang.com/desk/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/post-it-results-graphed6.jpg" /></p> <p>Which of these techniques do you prefer? Do Tufte/Few/etc. have stated opinions on it? I'm guessing Tufte would say "no numbers" is best ... as the value, its position, and the length of the bar all act to "show the data," and that having all three is redundant. But I have to say that seeing the explicit values helps me to focus on the data, and not just glaze over the bars' lengths. So I guess the more specific question: <strong>Do you prefer to put your values inside or outside the bar?</strong> </p>