timeline – Page 12 – Coffee Spoons

Hong Kong and Hongkonger Identity

Hong Kong—and to a similar extent Macau—is part of China, but at times not so much. Because of the long history of British control through their colony, the people of Hong Kong, Hongkongers, are accustomed to a more liberal, democratic, and perhaps Western lifestyle than those of mainland China. Since the British handover, a local university has been asking the inevitable question of “Are you Hongkonger or Chinese?”. This interactive piece from the South China Morning Post looks at how that answer has evolved over nearly 20 years.

The piece presents a broad overview on the right with the specific survey results displayed larger on the left. Broadly speaking, the piece is successful. In particular, the decision to highlight the particular survey on the right brings that into focus without losing the context of the historical results. And providing a timeline beneath the larger stacked bar chart on the left offers a second means of choosing a survey of interest.

Yet I think the piece lacks two, perhaps three, elements that would improve the piece. First, sometimes I like to see the numbers for data visualisations. Adding a hover or mouseover state would help with that. Second, while the chart on the left includes a 50% line, I wonder if that would not also be helpful in the historical display on the right. Thirdly, and perhaps not too important for those not terribly interested in the data, the overall piece states the sample size for all surveys being within a range. People wanting more data on the survey responses might be interested in seeing the sample size per survey.

Credit for the piece goes to Simon Scarr and Joe Lo.

Extraditing Snowden

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.

Trending Towards Gay Marriage

We are (still) waiting for a ruling on many things this week from the Supreme Court, including the rulings on DOMA and Prop 8. Today, we look at an interactive chart by the Wall Street Journal that plots different ballot measures, legislative actions, and court rulings regarding gay marriage. Lines of best fit provide a general trend line, and as the default view shows, the trend is clearly in favour of legalisation.

Trends for ballot measures, legislative actions, and court rulings for/against gay marriage

The piece is quite nice. After the default view, you can change the view to look at events not by type of action but by geographic region. This is one of those instances where the regional data provides an interesting look at the story. Additionally, the headlines on the left expand to provide not just context, but highlight the events plotted from that era.

Credit for the piece goes to Randy Yeip, Colleen McEnaney, and Chris Canipe.

Cicadian Rhythm

Cicadas are loud. And while some are around every year, there is at least one species that lives for up to seventeen years. They mate every seventeen years. In 2013 we are witnessing the emergence of Brood II, one of the numerous clusters that are synchronised to each other. But when and where have other broods been spotted over time? The New York Times looked at this question last week via an interactive graphic.

Credit for the piece goes to Jonathan Corum.

Mobile Phones

Earlier this year, the mobile phone (or cell phone for many Americans) turned 40. Today’s infographic comes from the National Post and looks at the history and the near future of the mobile phone market, mobile phones, and related technologies. A nice touch is a actual-scale drawing (best seen in print) comparing a modern iPhone to an “old school” mobile phone, as shown in the cropping of the original below.

Credit for the piece goes to Mike Faille and Kristopher Morrison.

Replacing Nomar Garciaparra

I am a fan of the Boston Red Sox and have been since 1999. The first (and sadly only) Red Sox game I saw at Fenway was the day after Nomar Garciaparra hit three home runs in one game. Two of them were grand slams. For you non-baseball folks (NBF) reading this, that is majorly impressive. Anyway, the Red Sox traded him in 2004 to acquire some pieces they needed to make a run for the World Series title that had eluded them for 80+ years (also significant for NBF). The result? My favourite player traded to the Cubs, but my favourite team won the World Series.

But now it’s Opening Day, the kickoff for the baseball season—that reference is for you American football fans. (To be fair, there was a game last night between two Texas teams, but today’s the de facto start.) Since that 2004 trade, however, the Red Sox have not had a consistent, long-term shortstop of the same offensive calibre of Nomar. How bad has this revolving door been? My infographic today looks at the shortstop replacements for Nomar Garciaparra.

Women in the US Senate

Women are half the population, but only twenty percent of the upper chamber of the United States Congress. As this great interactive timeline from the New York Times shows, at least that inequity has been narrowing over the last several elections.

The infographic comes in two main views. The first highlights women in the Senate and assigns them chronologically and then colours them by party. Important or notable senators are annotated appropriately. This view also shows the breakdown of women in the Senate at any one time in the small chart in the upper-left. Mousing over senators then provides a little bit of information about the woman in question.

But to put it in perspective, by selecting All Senators, the user can see the whole elected history of the US Senate—remember, prior to the 1920s you did not directly elect senators. That makes for a lot of grey bars, i.e. a lot of men.

Credit for the piece goes to Hannah Fairfield, Alan McLean and Derek Willis.

Understanding Modern China

China is a big country, both geographically and demographically. It can also be rather opaque and difficult for an outsider to understand. So this recent work from Reuters is amazing because it makes China a bit more transparent while illustrating just how the political system structures power and personnel appointments.

Truthfully, there is more content there than ought to be consolidated into a single blog post here. Briefly, the project was some 18 months in development and hits upon three key areas: Social Power, Institutional Power, and Career Comparisons. Two other sections, China 101 and Featured Stories, offer additional material to help the user understand China’s past and what is going on in the present.

Social Power with Xi Jinping's network shown

Social Power examines, primarily through the use of network diagrams, the social dynamics of the upper echelons of the Chinese leadership. Previous generations of Chinese political leaders saw power confined into the hands of a few, e.g. Mao Tse-tung, but in recent years the Chinese Communist Power has decentralised that power into several individuals. Many of those individuals have friendships, marriages, and business relationships that have advanced them and kept them in power. The interactivity allows the user to dive deep into these relationships. And should things becoming confusing, here and throughout the app, there are links to biographies, definitions, and guides to explain what is before the user.

Institutional Power roughly compares to a look at the American system of checks and balances. The responsibility of governing China falls to three “branches”: the Communist Party, the Chinese government, and the People’s Liberation Army (under which the navy and air force fall, e.g. the People’s Liberation Army Navy). This section of the app lists who belongs to each post or group and how that post or group falls into the broader structure of the Party, Government, or PLA.

The Career Comparison shows the different—but not really—tracks taken by the leaders of China. The user can compare individuals both present and past, along with potential future players, to see their route to power. China’s political system, because of its arguably undemocratic nature, is different from that of the United States. The path to power is longer and more established in China, as this section clearly shows.

As aforementioned the app was designed over 18 months and was optimised for the iPad 2+ and modern browsers (especially Chrome and Safari). All in all, a stellar piece of work. Design and development credits go to Fathom Interactive Design. The credits listed in the About section are as follows:

EDITOR+PROJECT LEADER: Irene Jay Liu
PRODUCTION HEADS: Yolanda Ma, Malik Yusuf
LEAD WRITER: Chris Ip
COPY EDITOR: John Newland
DESIGN+DEV: Fathom Information Design

How Film Trailers Are Crafted

It’s Oscar time. And not in the it’s time for grouchy, can-living commentary. It’s as in movie award time.

How are films promoted? Often through trailers and teasers. But how are those made? Well, the New York Times dissected trailers for five of the nine films up for best film. The piece looks at where the films are cut and spliced to create a 120-second-long overview without ruining the plot. And as it turns out, different types of trailers have different systems for cutting up those films.

The piece is made even better through the annotations associated with different segments of the different films. This paired with the introductory text makes the diagram of the film trailers intelligible to the reader. And then of course you can click on the still and see the actual trailer. A solid piece, all around.

Credit for the piece goes to Shan Carter, Amanda Cox, and Mike Bostock.

The Sky Is Falling…No…Wait…It’s Just a Dream(liner)

Boeing has been having some problems with its new aircraft, the 787 Dreamliner from cracked windshields to oil leaks to perhaps most problematic battery problems. Over the course of the last week, the New York Times has published a series of small graphics to complement stories about the problems and the investigations.

The first graphic looked at the Dreamliner and where its batteries are located. Unfortunately for Boeing, the Dreamliner is critical to its success moving forward and the remainder of the graphic shows just how important.

The next day a graphic about total deaths on US airline flights supported a piece about the Dreamliner.

Then yesterday the NYT published a graphic about the specific battery type (lithium ion) and what role it played in aircraft incidents, be them cargo or passenger related.