Graph literacy, in a sense

Ben Jones tweeted out this chart, which has an unusual feature:

What's unusual is that time runs in both directions. Usually, the rule is that time runs left to right (except, of course, in right-to-left cultures). Here, the purple area chart follows that convention while the yellow area chart inverts it.

On the one hand, this is quite cute. Lines meeting in the middle. Converging. I get it.

On the other hand, every time a designer defies conventions, the reader has to recognize it, and to rationalize it.

In this particular graphic, I'm not convinced. There are four numbers only. The trend on either side looks linear so the story is simple. Why complicate it using unusual visual design?

Here is an entirely conventional bumps-like chart that tells the story:

I've done a couple of things here that might be considered controversial.

First, I completely straightened out the lines. I don't see what additional precision is bringing to the chart.

Second, despite having just four numbers, I added the year 1996 and vertical gridlines indicating decades. A Tufte purist will surely object.

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Related blog post: "The Return on Effort in Data Graphics" (link)

Marketers want millennials to know they're millennials

When I posted about the lack of a standard definition of "millennials", Dean Eckles tweeted about the arbitrary division of age into generational categories. His view is further reinforced by the following chart, courtesy of PewResearch by way of MarketingCharts.com.

Pew asked people what generation they belong to. The amount of people who fail to place themselves in the right category is remarkable. One way to interpret this finding is that these are marketing categories created by the marketing profession. We learned in my other post that even people who use the term millennial do not have a consensus definition of it. Perhaps the 8 percent of "millennials" who identify as "boomers" are handing in a protest vote!

The chart is best read row by row - the use of stacked bar charts provides a clue. Forty percent of millennials identified as millennials, which leaves sixty percent identifying as some other generation (with about 5 percent indicating "other" responses). 

While this chart is not pretty, and may confuse some readers, it actually shows a healthy degree of analytical thinking. Arranging for the row-first interpretation is a good start. The designer also realizes the importance of the diagonal entries - what proportion of each generation self-identify as a member of that generation. Dotted borders are deployed to draw eyes to the diagonal.

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The design doesn't do full justice for the analytical intelligence. Despite the use of the bar chart form, readers may be tempted to read column by column due to the color scheme. The chart doesn't have an easy column-by-column interpretation.

It's not obvious which axis has the true category and which, the self-identified category. The designer adds a hint in the sub-title to counteract this problem.

Finally, the dotted borders are no match for the differential colors. So a key message of the chart is buried.

Here is a revised chart, using a grouped bar chart format:

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In a Trifecta checkup (link), the original chart is a Type V chart. It addresses a popular, pertinent question, and it shows mature analytical thinking but the visual design does not do full justice to the data story.

 

 

Light entertainment: people of color

What colors do the "average" person like the most and the least? The following chart found here (Scott Design) tells you favorite and least favorite colors by age groups:

(This is one of a series of charts. A total of 10 colors is covered by the survey. The same color can appear in both favorites and least favorites since these are aggregate proportions. Almost 40% of the respondents are under 18 and only one percent are over 70.)

Here's one item that has stumped me thus far: how are the colors ordered within each figurine?

Who is a millennial? An example of handling uncertainty

I found this fascinating chart from CNBC, which attempts to nail down the definition of a millennial.

It turns out everyone defines "millennials" differently. They found 23 different definitions. Some media outlets apply different definitions in different items.

I appreciate this effort a lot. The design is thoughtful. In making this chart, the designer added the following guides:

• The text draws attention to the definition with the shortest range of birth years, and the one with the largest range.
• The dashed gray gridlines help with reading the endpoints of each bar.
• The yellow band illustrates the so-called average range. It appears that this average range is formed by taking the average of the beginning years and the average of the ending years. This indicates a desire to allow comparisons between each definition and the average range.
• The bars are ordered by the ending birth year (right edge).

The underlying issue is how to display uncertainty. The interest here is not just to feature the "average" definition of a millennial but to show the range of definitions.

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In making my chart, I apply a different way to find the "average" range. Given any year, say 1990, what is the chance that it is included in any of the definitions? In other words, what proportion of the definitions include that year? In the following chart, the darker the color, the more likely that year is included by the "average" opinion.

I ordered the bars from shortest to the longest so there is no need to annotate them. Based on this analysis, 90 percent (or higher) of the sources list 19651985 to 1993 as part of the range while 70 percent (or higher) list 19611981 to 1996 as part of the range.