Tag: infographic

The Phoenix Rises from the Charcoal

To be clear, climate change is real. We know humanity drives the bulk of it via emissions of carbon and other greenhouse gasses, e.g. methane. Electricity generation plays a significant role in the total output, though not all means of generating power are equal. Wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear, for example, produce no carbon emissions. Hence their green credentials. Natural gas is moderately bad, oil is bad, but coal is the worst.

So the White House decided to prioritise the rebirth of the coal industry. The New York Times published an article last week exploring the administration’s attempts to strong arm the electricity industry to reopen closed coal plants and delay the closure of aging plants despite the often unprofitable nature of running said plants.

The article included two graphics I wanted to highlight. First, a map showed the location and power output of coal plants slated to close in 2025.

It sites the plants’ locations on the map and scales the dot/circle by the election generation capacity of the plant. Colour encodes the plants’ fates, whether they ultimately shut down, stayed open of the companies’ volition, or were forced open by the government.

I remain leery of area charts, because of the long-established difficulty in comparing areas. Here, however, I think the trade-offs work because their geographic location is an important consideration. Forcing plants to remain open keeps at least some jobs around the local market. And where are the orange dots clustered? Michigan, Indiana, and Colorado to name a few. Where did government pressure force companies to keep their plants open? Florida, Wisconsin, and Colorado to again name a few. What do those states have in common? They all voted for Trump or are otherwise considered battleground states. Consequently, showing where the story happened I think is important in a story about White House economic actions.

Secondly, the article included a bar chart showing coal production.

Bar charts remain a staple of good information design when done correctly. These days I often find poorly designed bar charts in articles and content. The Times’ example here, however, remains the goal. The trend is visually clear. Coal capacity increasingly declined since 2012, but that decline slowed in later years and reached its slowest decline in 15 years in 2025. The annotation of the new coal orders makes the correlation clear. And nowhere in this chart was every bar labelled. Instead, clear axis labelling and axis lines allow the user to read the chart without the extra information of knowing the precise number of megawatt changes in coal capacity.

This piece does a great job of using a map and a bar chart to buttress the story about how the administration is forcing the energy industry to reinvest in coal, even if coal remains a means of generation not generally economically sustainable.

Credit for the pieces goes to Brad Plumer.

A View Beneath the Ice

I love maps. And above the ocean’s surface, we generally have accurate maps for Earth’s surface with only two notable exceptions. One is Greenland and its melting ice sheet is, in part, contributes to the emerging conflict between the United States and Denmark over the island’s future. The other? Antarctica.

Parts of the East Antarctic ice sheet cover the continent in over 4 km of glacial ice. Yet if you look at a map of Antarctica you often see some sparse bits and bobs of brown around the continent’s edges—the continent’s sparse strips of barren rock wedged between the sea and the ice. There topographic maps reveal mountains, valleys, archipelagos, and a broad range of geographic features one expects to find on a continent larger than Europe. The rest of the continent, however, sits like a blank canvas in giant white spaces, perhaps with an isoline or two to indicate the ice sheet’s depth.

What rests beneath the ice? To an extent, we do not know. But over the decades modern science has slowly revealed Antarctica’s secrets. And last week a new scientific paper revealed the highest resolution map yet of the world’s southernmost continent.

This screenshot from a BBC article about the new map I thought does a good job of showing the map as well as providing intelligible context for readers.

We see rough scratches of brown over the white, but what does it mean? The paper’s authors describe the landforms as alpine or flat plains, and then something in-between, where erosion is an ongoing and current-day process. Those terms perhaps mean little to the broader audience, so the BBC added photographs of similar unglaciated landscapes from elsewhere on Earth.

I looked at the actual article for a quick comparison, and I believe the BBC adjusted the colour for their audience, a brown–blue spectrum, compared to the paper’s original dark blue to bright green. This brown, white, and blue colour palette certainly plays better to maps with which the general public is familiar.

Regardless, the whole thing is fantastic overall. Sadly, it seems increasingly likely that in the coming centuries more and more of this ice-covered continent will reveal itself to humanity as the climate continues to warm.

Credit for the graphic goes to the BBC graphics team.

Credit for the map goes to R.G. Bingham and A. Curtiss.

The Sun’s Over the Yardarm

After all, matey, ’tis Friday.

For those unfamiliar with the expression, what is a yardarm you ask? On traditional sailing vessels the tall thing holding the sail is the mast. Back in the day it was often crafted from a tall tree—see the critical timber industry of New England and the white pines provided to the Royal Navy. From the mast, horizontal (usually) beams of wood, called spars, anchored to the mast provide the connection points for the sails. These spars, especially for the big square-shaped sails on the famous fighting ships of yore, are called yards. The yardarm is the end of the yard after all the bits and bobs controlling the sails.

Back in the day, when the sun rose over the yardarm, sailors knew the time had arrived for their first ration of rum of the day. And as today is the Friday before—in the US—a three-day weekend, somewhere in the world the sun is over at the yardarm.

In other words, this Friday is a good Friday to highlight xkcd’s post about the common type of sailing rigs. The combinations of masts and sails can be grouped into a thing called a rigging and we classify riggings based upon shared traits.

Happy Friday, all.

Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.

Turning the Pyramid Upside Down

Literally.

Last week amongst all the things, the administration released new dietary guidelines, including a brand new food pyramid. The guidelines needed some tweaking as dietary and nutritional science evolves.

The administration made a big deal about replacing the old pyramid with the new pyramid, and you can see the comparison here.

I am not a scientist. I don’t even play one on television. So I will keep my thoughts to the design—although I will say that is a lot of steak and turkey…

My first thought about the design? Pyramids are an incredibly strong and stable shape. Just look over at Giza to see how stable a pyramid is compared to the tower that is the Lighthouse of Alexandria or the man-shaped Colossus of Rhodes.

But when you flip the script and turn the pyramid upside down…you place all the weight at the top and focus the pressure on the tip of the pyramid. That is an incredibly unstable design, and I have to wonder do we want that implicit communication in a message to people about how to be healthy?

The other point I would make is that the new pyramid does not just explicitly reference the older pyramid, but quietly and without mention replaces the MyPlate initiative of the Obama administration.

The plate design worked better from a personal planning standpoint because the circular plate is—usually—the device upon which we eat our meals. (The whole square meal thing, as I was taught, originated with the Royal Navy, which served three meals a day to sailors on wooden, square-shaped plates.) And who doesn’t like a small side dish of cheese with their meals?

I cannot say an inverted pyramid showing the aforementioned steak and turkey provides the same instructional use of what people should be placing on their plates.

Either the right-side-up pyramid of the healthy plate design works best from a design perspective. Though, to be clear, I have no real thoughts on what the division of the simplified three categories should be. But would I eat a wedge of cheese half the size of a turkey? Yes, yes I would.

Credit for the new pyramid goes to the National Design Studio.

Credit for the older works I cannot find, but if anyone does, please let me know.

Flow Diagram from Hell

Well, not hell, but xkcd.

The last several months I have had to use a number of websites where the user experience broke down and I was forced to switch to using a phone. Only to have the phone try and direct me back to the website. Nightmarish stuff, people.

So Happy Friday!

Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.

When the Ship Hits the Fan

On Friday I flagged this article from the New York Times for the first post in the new year here on Coffeespoons. The article discussed a Venezuelan oil tanker fleeing US Coast Guard and US Navy forces attempting to interdict the vessel as she steams into the North Atlantic. Whilst the article led with a photograph of the vessel in question, when you read the article you very quickly arrive at a map of the world.

I really enjoyed how the map blended together two different data sources. Ships are tracked by automated signals, similar to aircraft. But, like aircraft—remember Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?—those signals can be turned off and then you are left to search old-fashioned like with binoculars trained to the horizon. (Hyperbole, of course, as mariners now have things like radar and satellite imagery.)

Did anything else happen with Venezuela this past weekend?

Credit for the piece goes to Daniel Wood and Elena Shao.

Off on the Road to Rhode Island

Yesterday I read an article from the BBC about this weekend’s shooting at Brown University, one of the nation’s top universities. The graphic in question had nothing to do with killings or violence, but rather located Rhode Island for readers. And the graphic has been gnawing at me for the better part of a day.

First, its size. I typically read the news here on my laptop in the morning and evening and then around lunch I check the news on my mobile. (I find limiting my mobile screen use limits the propensity for doomscrolling.) This locator map occupied the entire screen in its column of text. I cannot say for certain this screenshot will be as large, but fingers crossed it is for point of emphasis.

Context for my international readers, Rhode Island is the smallest state in the union. I visited Providence a few years ago for a long weekend and walked about half an hour east of the city for some good Portuguese food and was about another 15 minutes’ walk away from the border with Massachusetts. I like to joke I walked halfway across the state in an hour. (A quick search on Google Maps says I could walk across the state in 9.5 hours, so it isn’t a stretch…) Why did the BBC need such a large map for such a small state?

Secondly, locator maps work really well when they contain other points of reference. If we assume most people do not know where Providence and Rhode Island are, we can agree to the need for a locator map. But what points of reference does this map include? None.

So here in a quick edit I reduce the size of the map and I add two points of reference and suddenly Providence’s place in the United States makes more sense.

No, I did not edit the shape of the square on the inset map.

My second quibble is the labelling for Rhode Island. The circle/dot points to a specific location. And that works well* for cities like Providence, Boston, and New York. But the dot for Rhode Island implies a specific location that is not true. Rhode Island is the entire shape of yellow. In circumstances like these I prefer an outline. Or even just an unlinked label works, because the graphic does not label other visible states: Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey.

I like locator maps. I grew up a geography nerd—it was probably one of my favourite classes in school. Anything that happens in life happens in a time and a place and I am always curious to know where the place in a news story is. Granted, I know where Providence is, but if you mentioned a random town in upstate New York, I might instinctively open Google Maps and find where the town is located.

But I want locator maps to work well too. And I think this particular map from the BBC unfortunately fails to work. Especially because of how much space this graphic occupied in the article. In a smaller graphic, absolutely begin cutting labelling and context. But for a near-full screen image, these extra bits help readers tremendously.

Credit for the piece goes to the BBC graphics department.

* I am being overly simplistic here. Take a look at New York. The actual city of New York includes the grey island directly below the dot, Staten Island. The dot does not encapsulate all the area of the city. Even dots can be problematic at certain scales.

When the Walls Fell

Back in September I wrote about the siege of el-Fasher in Sudan, wherein the town and its government defenders faced the paramilitary rebel forces, the Rapid Support Force (RSF). At the time the RSF besiegers were constructing a wall to encircle the town and cut residents and defending forces off from resupply and reinforcements.

At the end of October, RSF troops pushed into el-Fasher and captured the main government military base, effectively ending resistance in the town. Brutality followed suit.

In the following three weeks, social media footage has evidenced mass killings and summary executions. Satellites high above the conflict have captured images of mass graves dug and filled.

This graphic from a BBC article covering the horror includes a four-panel small multiple of satellite photos of a children’s hospital in the city. The first two images, screenshot here, capture the day before the city’s fall and then a few days later the appearance of likely bodies and the digging of a small mass grave.

The rest of the graphic in the article details the worsening of the situation.

In my September post I commented about how the RSF besiegers used one of mankind’s most ancient forms of warfare. Two months later they followed that up by another of mankind’s most ancient forms of warfare: slaughter the inhabitants of a captured town.

Suffice it to say the article’s content does not make for an easy read. The graphics buttress the article with a necessary, but cold clinical detachment as it is not as if the RSF will allow journalists or statisticians into el-Fasher to catalogue their crimes.

The graphics comprise a number of satellite photographs along with a few social media videos and images linking the RSF to the mass killings. The designers annotated the photographs clearly and they communicate just what we know about the crimes without any added hyperbole or hysteria. A well done piece.

Unfortunately, as for the subject matter, it does not look like things in Sudan will be getting any better anytime soon.

Credit for the piece goes to the BBC graphics team.

Tarnished Linings

Last month the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) ordered Philadelphia’s public transit system, SEPTA, to inspect the backbone of its commuter rail service, Regional Rail: all 225 Silverliner IV railcars. The Silverliner IV fleet, aged over 50 years, suffered a series of fires this summer and the NTSB investigators wanted them inspected by the end of October.

We are now into the second week of November and the job is not yet finished. Luckily, the NTSB extended the deadline to the middle of November—this Friday—and the Philadelphia Inquirer has quietly tracked the progress of the inspections with a series of graphics, the screenshot below being today’s. (The data being as of Friday, 7 November.)

I specifically took a screenshot from the top of the webpage, because I think this datagraphic series works particularly well. Directly beneath the article’s sub-head the reader sees the graphic answering the title’s question. The legend sits atop the graphic and incorporates the actual data labels for the specific number of cars in each category. This is instant gratification without the need for a superfluous file photo of a burned out railcar or commuter rail station. I have long advocated that data visualisation pieces can be the hero or headline image for articles and written works.

Does the legend need to incorporate the actual, specific number of railcars in that status? No, that bit is superfluous because graphics are meant to show, not tell, a visual story or pattern. If the precise number is required, a table suffices. (Or, in this case, three factettes in lieu of the graphic could do the trick.)

Colour-wise the designers opted to eschew the traditional green–red status board and the potential deficiencies for the colour-blind that such a pattern entails. Instead they used a blue–red pattern that not only works in the context of statuses but also calls to the brand colours of the transit agency.

Functionally, the datagraphic is static. And that is perfectly fine—not every online graphic needs to be interactive. Instead of, say, having a dropdown menu to select the data from whatever date the user wants, the article contains a series of posts of the static datagraphic of the day.

Overall, I really like this piece. I just wish we could have seen the inspections completed by the original deadline.

Credit for the piece goes to Erica Palan and Thomas Fitzgerald.

Fun fact no. 1: the datagraphic shows a total of 223 railcars instead of the 225 in the fleet. The editors did a good job calling attention to this and pointing out Septa had previously retired two railcars for unrelated aging issues.

Fun fact no. 2: the Commonwealth’s budget impasse of earlier this year saw Harrisburg moved nearly $400 million from Septa’s capital improvements fund to cover day-to-day operating costs with the vague “promise” the fund will be backfilled at a later date. That $400 million capital improvement fund would have been responsible for things like, say, replacing the Silverliner IVs with new railcars. So for those so inclined, you can blame Harrisburg Republicans for delaying the Silverliner IV’s replacement.

(I do have to say, seeing that gives me flashbacks to the days of posting all my COVID-19 status updates. I had not realised it at the time, but nearly two years of daily posts of deaths burned me out on the regular daily updates here.)

Philadelphia Blue Jays

Last weekend one of my good mates and I went out watch Game 7 of the World Series, wherein the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Toronto Blue Jays for Major League Baseball’s championship. Whilst we watched, I pointed out that the Jays’ pitcher at the moment hailed from a suburb of Philadelphia. He was well aware and informed that player was far from the only one and showed me a graphic of five Blue Jays from the Philadelphia region.

I asked him to send me the graphic, but unfortunately the graphic itself does not include any branding or creators’ marks so I cannot attribute its designer.

Also unfortunately, that night turned out—to nobody’s surprise—to be the final night of MLB games until Spring Training begins in February. (Though if you want, you can watch the Latin winter leagues to get your fix. I have been known to dabble.)

Credit for the piece goes to somebody out on the internet.