This
chart, is from The Economist. It compares the use of clean energy, mainly solar energy, in different countries around the world. The countries/regions included and compared in this chart are China, United States, Europe, and the rest of the world. One of the strengths of this chart is that it is a bar chart. This makes this chart easy to read. However, there are too many bars in this chart, which may make it confusing for some people, because it gives this chart a crowded appearance. The different colours represent the different countries listed in the legend. However, the many bars and colours make the chart appear too clustered. The creator of this chart shouldn't have included so many years. However, the numbers do start at zero, which is one another strength of this chart. Unfortunately the creator did not specify what the numbers on the right mean. It signifies an amount of solar power used, but not the exact measurements, which can also be confusing for readers.
In my opinion, if the creator wanted to improve the appearance of this chart, the main issue they should focus on is the cluster of bars sprawled on the chart. Also, the countries are difficult to compare in the years 2004 and 2005, because they are so small. It would have been better to simply remove the other bars, and lessen the amount of years listed in the chart. It is understandable that the creator would like to compare the past years to the present, however, this amount of bars makes this chart extremely crowded. All in all, using a bar chart instead of a pie chart, or line chart is the main strengths of this chart. Since there is so much information listed, it would be even more confusing if this chart was anything other than a bar chart.
I agree with your analysis that a bar chart is good for Data Visualization. I like that you pointed out this particular chart may be confusing because there are too many bars. One thing I think you could have improved would have been annotating the graph. This would allow the viewer to look back at the chart and see what you may have been referring too.
ReplyDeleteI agree the some of the colors used in the graph make the graph clustered and hard to read. Also it would be helpful to have the metric numbers (y-axis) be on the left hand side as it makes it easier to read.
ReplyDeleteI agree your analysis that the strengths of this chart is a bar chart, but it also become a weakness as too many bars in the chart. One thing that could be improved is to make sure to annotate about the chart and give the support for your analysis.
ReplyDeleteHi Nasreen,
ReplyDeleteGood writing for the analyzing. One thing I'm very agree is the part which is bar chart is fit data visualization. About the colors, I also strongly agree that it really help to distinguish the different data points. One thing I only want to mention is the annotation would be better to put in the chart.
The colors used in the graph distinguishes between the different sets of data collected as it affect clean energy. I find it very captivating but at the same time very busy. This makes it somewhat difficult to follow and understand the trends.
ReplyDelete