I don’t often write about maps, especially of the choropleth kind. In many cases I choose not to because so many of the maps are one-dimensional: how fast is x growing across the world; which is predominant across the world, y or z? So I was pleasantly surprised by the Economist yesterday when they published this interactive map on the scourges of hepatitis and HIV.
Hepatitis vs HIV
Quickly put, the map is a success. It shows a clear geographic pattern; the developed/Western world along with the Middle East and Asia have a larger problem in hepatitis than HIV whereas Africa and Latin America are dealing moreso with HIV. (Admittedly, the fact that 117 out of 187 countries are dealing more with hepatitis is lost because so many of the countries are small in area.) But, the really nice bit about the map is not just the colour by virus, but the tint by comparative ratio. The darker the colour, the stronger the one virus over the other.
Lastly, from a data perspective, I just wonder if the ratios could not be adjusted for population, or deaths as a percentage of the national population? I would be curious to see if that would yield interesting results.
Credit for the piece goes to C.H., R.L.W., J.S., and D.H.
For those of you who did not know, the country of Mali held elections yesterday and results should be forthcoming. Those of you who regularly read or semi-frequently check my blog, you are likely familiar with the work I did covering the French-led intervention in Mali. I am a bit busy working on some other projects, so I did not have the time to prepare a graphic for the election as I had hoped. Nor did many others. Alas, the only graphic I have come upon is from Al Jazeera. And it is a mess.
Mali's election
That map only shows the provinces; the colours signify nothing. Nor is there any context for the factettes on the side. And while perhaps the intention was to show Mali in a snapshot, I think a piece about the challenges facing Mali could delve a bit into forecasted statistics. I credit the team behind the project with attempting to cover the story, but aside from biographies on the four leading candidates and overviews of the main militant groups, the piece lacks depth and substance.
Ultimately, after looking at the work, I am left wanting more. A lot more.
Credit for the piece goes to Alia Chughtai and Jacob Powell.
After two weeks out of the country, I come back and find early this morning (thanks, jet lag) an interactive article published by the New York Times on income mobility. What does that mean? From a medium side, a long narrative interspersed with charts and graphics with which the user can interact to uncover specific data about specific elements in the dataset. From a content side, income mobility means the movement of an individual from one group of money earned to another, e.g. a poor person becoming a millionaire. The piece is fantastic and you should take the time to go read and interact with it.
A map shows the broad context of the data to be looked at in the story
For some time now I have harped on about the need to annotate and contextualise datasets. Too often, large datasets paralyse people; their eyes glaze over and they simply gaze at a graphic without seeing the data, the story, the information. Little notes and blurbs of text can help people synthesise what they see with what they read with what they know to gain better understanding. But in this piece, by combining a lengthy article—very well written although that is not the focus of this post—with powerful interactive maps and graphics, the New York Times has created a powerful piece that states and then proves the point of the article. And while doing all of that, by making the datasets explorable, the Times also allows you to find your own stories.
A story-like piece lets you choose an area and an income to see how the article's topic plays out
Lastly, in the credits section at the end you will see this piece required the input of eight individuals (though I know not in what particular capacities). Clearly, for the Times this is not about to become a regular type of infographic/datavis/journalism piece. But when will skill sets be democratised or dispersed enough that smaller teams can create similar scale projects? That will be interesting to see. However, the Times certainly leads the States if not the world in some of the best information design pieces and undoubtedly this will push other publishers of similar content in this direction.
Ultimately people want to know who's best and who's worse and where they fall and this chart does that at the end of the piece
Credit for the piece goes to Mike Bostock, Shan Carter, Amanda Cox, Matthew Ericson, Josh Keller, Alicia Parlapiano, Kevin Quealy, and Josh Williams.
If all is going according to plan, I should be somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains at this point, specifically in the Presov region of Slovakia. So as a reminder of just what that means, here is a (recycled) piece I created this time last year about the Carpatho-Rusyns (sometimes known as Ruthenians) living in Slovakia. Click the image to go to the full infographic.
Cropping of the Rusyns of Slovakia
Credit goes to me for the piece, but to the statistics office of Slovakia for the data.
It’s Friday. So what else could you want but cat videos?! On the internet?!
But seriously, that’s what I have for you today. But with a twist. The BBC and the Royal Veterinary College collaborated to document a day in the life of cats by attaching collars with micro-cameras and GPS trackers to several felines in one English village. Cats are selected by illustration at the top of the graphic. Their day’s walking path is traced out over the village while video clips of some of the more interesting parts of the day are available to watch.
A day in the life of Phoebe the cat
Credit for the piece goes to Steven Atherton, Chris Finch, Alex Ranken, Lucy Rodgers, Helene Sears, Marina Shchukina, and Noah Veltman.
Edward Snowden is still on the run; he is still in the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport without a passport to enter Russia. But if ever succeeds in extricating himself from his current predicament, Snowden presumably will seek to land in a country without an extradition treaty with the United States.
So in this interactive piece, the Guardian explores which countries have such treaties. The list serves as an index to the actual treaty texts. Beneath the globe are samples of different texts that show how an extradition treaty is drafted. The last piece highlights three countries that are possible options, but also options that have extradition treaties in place.
Extradition Treaties with the United States
Credit for the piece goes to the Guardian US Interactive Team.
The National Post published this fascinating infographic on the Canadian fur industry. Historically speaking, that industry is one of the most important to Canada being one of the primary reasons for Canada’s colonisation by France and later the United Kingdom (to a lesser extent). The graphic provides illustrations of the pelts to scale along with data on the volume and value of the trade in each type of fur. Then it maps the ranges for each of the animals with a matrix of small multiples.
Canadian Fur
While it may not be a mistake, I am curious about the two areas of polar bears in the northern United States. Methinks that the Rockies, while snowcapped, would be a bit warm for the bears.
Credit for the piece goes to Joe O’Connor, Andrew Barr, Mike Faille, and Richard Johnson.
Last week I looked at a piece from the Washington Post about the possible impact of the Supreme Court rulings on gay marriage in the United States. But with the rulings yesterday, we step back and look at globally how the progression of gay rights has taken steps forward or backward.
The National Post looked at the reversal of bans of gay marriage as well as polling from several countries to look at changing opinions and perspectives across the world. Fascinating/horrifying are some of the stories about specific countries in the map.
Gay acceptance
My only real criticism is that the colour-coding of regions seems a bit jarring. I wonder if grouping countries by region would not have allowed the same data to be presented in a bit quieter tone.
As I have been blogging the past several days, today the Supreme Court will announce its rulings on the two gay marriage cases. But, I have already looked at that twicenow. Today I want to look at the results of the Massachusetts special election for the US Senate, necessitated by John Kerry resigning from the seat to become Secretary of State.
This work comes from the Huffington Post. It offers the usual map fare with towns coloured by the victor and tinted by the share of the vote. Though do note the interesting—is this novel?—means of filling in the town with colour to represent the percent of the town reporting. My screenshot is a bit late, but check out Warren near Springfield or Boston and Cambridge—a bit harder to see because of their size and shape.
Looking across the state for the results
However, the fascinating thing is the use of the small multiples of scatter plots to look at historic elections. The designers included a small key in the upper-right explaining that dots above the line represent towns where Ed Markey, the Democrat who won, outperformed the historic Democrat. I have not seen anybody attempt to portray the data in this fashion before.
Using a scatter plot to chart the results
Credit for the piece goes to Aaron Bycoffe and Jay Boice.
