Maps and legends

This chart, which I found flipping through Stern magazine in Germany, accomplishes one important goal. It makes me stop flipping, and look.

The chart presents a point of view that is refreshing. The Airbus A320 is a true collaborative effort. The chart presents a good amount of information efficiently. Reminds me of diagrams in instruction manuals for building airplane models.

It is in essence a map. And as with maps, it has a built-in bias. The size of a part is not proportional to its importance or value. So, one issue with this diagram is it draws attention to large parts with uncomplicated shapes.

One way to address this is to use an informative legend. Notice that the map up top takes up a lot of space while serving little purpose. Instead, one can use a bar chart with a colored bar for each country. This bar chart allows one to add an extra measure. For example, the proportion of value accounted for by each country.

European readers: I wonder if there is a standard color scheme for different countries. What do you think of their choice of color?

 

 

Comments

[Michael]

"Notice that the map up top takes up a lot of space while serving little purpose."

I disagree! The map provides a graphical representation which is quick and easy to interpret. Your proposal requires one to read and interpret a label which requires an extra cognitive load. (IMHO ;) )

This is a similar situation to instrumentation used in aircraft. The older "round dial" instruments can be interpreted without having to read the number - you just glance at the position of the needle.

The newer "speed tape" presentation requires the pilot to read and interpret the number.

[jlbriggs]

"Your proposal requires one to read and interpret a label which requires an extra cognitive load."

Possibly true, but the bar chart would actually encode and display data that is not currently shown.

The map shows only the country of origin, and says nothing else.

[LemmusLemmus]

German reader here: Nope, I'm not aware of a standard color scheme for different countries.

[EB]

No, I've not seen those colours. In fact it looks like they've deliberately chosen colours that are not traditionally associated with those countries. If you picked countries' 'traditional' colours, you'd quickly run out of blues and reds in Europe!