Vizology

How much CO2 per capita does your country emit? Perhaps you’ve seen some data or story about CO2 per country, with some high and some low. I bet it come up as a number, or a bar on a chart, or maybe a bit of both. This week that scenario happened to me – a number in a bar, with lots of other bars around it. But what did the number mean? How could I relate it to something? Or compare with other countries?

So I took that idea and ran with it. After a bit of data collection, a way more manual and harder process than I care to admit here, I had my data ready. Country, C02 per capital number, a way to relate to size (like 2 tons = a big car). A data connection and a few viz attempts to get the look better and data text more viewable, I created….

So what’s in there, from a vizology view?

• Eye grabbing title which uses a parameter to include the country selected, making it more personal.
• The question to ask of this Viz, and in this case it helps setup why we are comparing a number to a size.
• A lollipop chart to give a different view. I love these as I can change the “treat” at the top to do a few things. In this case I’ve taken the number away and given it an object to relate the emissions to a real thing. 5 tons is not an easily imaginable number. An elephant is.
• Added some, but not too much, colour transition in the tops of the lollipops.
• Broke the stem of the lollipop out with country level detail. I love being able to do this in a bar chart, to see what makes up that detail.
• A control to let you select a country, which then makes it visible in the chart, makes this interactive and more specific to the users. I personally like my viz’s to be interactive and let me explore.
• Colour coded the country selected so you could easily find out where it is on the chart, to see its emissions and peers.
• Tool tips to tell you more of the story, without the clutter, so if you hover over the chart you gain more insight.
• A page with my source data – you do have to download to get that at the moment to keep this clean. I do think its important to record your sources if you use, inspirations and any complicated logic you use.

What might I add next? A bit of a guide to what you are seeing. I know where to find things however it may not be obvious to everyone that you can hover over for tool tips, that the size of the lollipop could relate to number of countries in that list and I would love to change the circles to an icon of what it relates to for added punch.

Hope you will have a play around with it, see the different countries and try some of the tips mentioned. Took about 30 minutes viz effort to create, was a bit of fun and something I’m happy enough to share. Typing up all those tips involved in making the one viz, looks like a whole new set of blogs to develop to explain each in more detail. Stay tuned.