Data Visualization #3 & Data Critique #2
Original Data Visualization
Click Here to See Full Visualization
Rationale for Selection
There were two reasons why I chose this particular data visualization:
- The Subject Matter
- Visual Aesthetic
Speaking to the first point, I have personally been affected by gun violence and wanted to view an analysis of how geographical area can have an influence. On the second point, the visualization was very attractive. Not only is it unique, compared to a standard bar chart, but also presents supplementary data (records, permits, etc.), interactive factors and comes with three organizational iterations of the data (political, regional, alphabetical) that promotes further learning for the reader.
However, this assignment gears on poorly presented data, therefore, this visualization contains an issue of encompassing everything, which distracts from the main point.
Process
Wireframe
Coming up with a solution to enhance this data visualization first started with brainstorming. Even though the visualization was unique, it could be simplified. Therefore, a simple bar graph could do justice. Each bar color red or blue to indicate political association would be beneficial. For the bar graph, I thought a histogram with each state compared to the “National Gun Murder Rate” would be effective. Next, instead of having the supplementary information/facts (i.e.: records, permits, etc.) presented in the legend, that information could be embedded in a pop-up textbox when hovering above a state. Then, I decided to get rid of some information including: The Overall Gun Control Score (since the links to the Brady campaign are not functional, which ruins the justification of their calculated score), cutting the 3 iterations of the visualization to just present the states in alphabetical order, truncating the opening paragraph, and changing the title of the visualization.
Wireframe Critiques
Using the Wireframe Critiques
Viewing my wireframe (created with the platform Balsamiq) feedback, I modified the visualization including:
- Changing the Title (including the year 2012)
- Cut the histogram and focused solely on a single-bar graph
- Edited the short caption of the graph
- Made a distinction on “Murder Rate” to display “Gun Murder Rate”
- Incorporated the supplementary information (i.e.: records, permits, etc.) into the textbox pop-up
- Spelling Errors
- Added a reference line for “National Gun Murder Rate”
Final Visualization
Using both the brainstorm and critiques, I created a simplified data visualization that analyzed gun murder rates for each state compared with the “National Average Gun Murder Rate”. In simplification process, I hid the supplementary data and transformed it to a pop-up feature that would display when the user hovers over singular states. Because the original graph was showing excess information that skewed the overall message, the simplification focused solely on gun murder rates which would convey a stronger case towards geographical area having an effect on gun laws and violence.
I will conclude that even though I made an attempt at fixing up the data visualization, there is much more to be collected in proving geographical area is a determinate to gun violence.