Visualisation - Assignment I
University of Vienna
a1009188, Jacqueline Fischer
Diagram I
Design decision. For the first diagram I've chosen a bar chart to show the five countries which
kept the most of aid money for their own. Therefore I've sorted the data so I can show the top five.
The problem is that it describes a very special view and could get misunderstood because it gives
a very exaggerated impression, on the other side if I take all countries it gets a little bit confusing. I
took only the five most significant countries because I don't want to confuse or tire people by
looking at the bar chart. If I take a average view of the data there are some statements which don't
fit for every country and its very inaccurate. If someone is searching for specific data it won't get
found with an average view.
Anyways I've chosen this view because it shows a strong message that the aid money not always
flows where people expect it to and it seems that the rules are a little bit spongy. I would add the
year and the average percentage of aid money which is kept by the countries to the text which is
related to the diagram but nevertheless the diagram looses the data of the other countries, the
comparative value and the purpose of the aid money. It is very hard because every design decision
looses some informations and sometimes it partially creates wrong statements. It's not possible to
get all relevant information into the diagrams, it's only possible to take a special part of the whole
and to represent a special story but it conceals parts of the truth or is a little bit inaccurate.
Color and Design. I've chosen a reddish color because for me its a color which gets a lot of
attention. I didn't want it to be too red because for the eyes it's hard to deal with, so I turned the
transparency to 25 percent because I didn't wanted the color to get too glaring. The color red
stands for attention, aggressiveness which can be related to the data. I've removed the black lines
and tried to remove the elements that distract from the message because with less lines it appears
clearer and smarter. I've chosen a bar chart because it's quick and easy to understand. The
countries are not directly related to each other so I think the data is categorical and the countries
are keys.
Diagram II
Design decision. For the second diagram I've chosen a pie chart. I've thought about a lot
of different decisions but it turned out very hard. The average values just distort the truth a
little bit. To make a serious graphic maybe you have to display every country for its own to
get the right message. For example Austria has a lot of student costs but looking on the
average chart the most issues are on administrative costs. So someone can conclude
Austria has the most issues on administrative costs but it's a wrong information. Average
values can maybe make room for wrong conclusions.There's a need to display the
purpose of the aid money for every country so you can look up some facts and maybe it is
possible to reduce some vague statements.
I've chosen this diagram because it seemed important for me what the purpose of all the
non transferred aid money is. It would not make sense to just pick one country because
they are often very different though, so I took the average values but there should be the
possibility to also look at individual countries.
Color and Design. I took the pie chart because the total costs split into different pieces
which are all summarized under aid money. The administrative costs have the greatest
amount so I took a red color for this part because it should get the greatest amount of
attention. The color of the “Refugees in donor countries” is grey because grey is the color
of neutrality and I thought it fits for this topic. For “dept relief” I've chosen the color violet
because violet stands for balance and regeneration. The green on “imputed student costs”
represents the process of growing (like plants) and students also have to grow. The yellow
on the “scholarships/ training in donor country” represents success and power which you
can get after a successful schooling. I've tried to make the percentage look a little bit
bigger than the text so you can see the numbers more quickly and I've tried to remove the
standard color table on the right which appears when making a pie chart. If it was possible
I wrote the text into the pieces.