Graph redesign is hot

Joe D., a long time reader, points us to a few blogs that have been active creating redesigns of charts, similar to how we do it here.

First up, here are some examples from Storytelling With Data (link).

This example transformed a grouped bar chart into a line chart, something that I have long advocated. I'm still waiting for the day when market research companies start to switch from bars to lines.

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Jorge Camoes, also a long-time reader, produced a redesign of a chart on military spending first printed in Time magazine. (link)

 

Dual-axis plots have been pilloried here often, especially when the two axes have different and incompatible units, as in here. As usual, transforming to a scatter plot is a good first step, which is what Jorge has done here. He then connected the dots to indicate the time evolution of the relationship. This is a smart move here just because the pattern is so stark.

The chart now illustrates an "inflexion point" in 2000. Prior to 2000, troop size was decreasing while the budget was stable. After 2000, budget increased sharply while troop size remained relatively stable.

Now peer back at the original chart. You can discern the sharp decrease in troop size over time, and the sharp increase in budget over time, but separately. The chart teases a cross-over point around 1995 which turned out to be misleading. This is a great illustration of why dual-axis plots are dangerous.

Comments

[Cole Nussbaumer]

Thanks for the mention! (Credit on this particular redesign goes to one of my students.)

The scatterplot with dates (and lines) from Jorge Cameos is certainly clever - I haven't seen it done quite that way before. Thank you for sharing!