Can I get some feedback on this picture please?

[AdamA]

Hi guys,

Just wondering what your initial impression of this graphic is (clarity, usefulness):
1) here is Information Picture I'm talking about
2) Should I put it at the top or bottom of the page?
3) How do you find the other pictures?

Feel free to share any other comments.

Thank you in advance.

[InterfaceLeader]

I found it a bit cluttered and all over the place... it looked like a number of different graphics slapped together with no real visual coherency.

None the less, it makes it's point.

[NewSimon]

Hi,

The pie chart (fig 7) I would be tempted to change into a bar chart, since there are too many items to clearly show without resorting to a large legend. Pie charts are good for comparison of small numbers of items, in this case I'm having to look at the legend each time and this is more informative. In fact a lot of the charts don't communicate the information as well as they could. I don't like having to go backwards and forwards between legend and chart to see what each bar is about.

The graphic needs a bit of work. There is an item heading followed by a more detailed description. I would cut down the description as they're too long in some cases, which is off-putting to read. Try and illustrate the figures more graphically - e.g. a graphic of 5 female pictograms next to 1 male pictogram. If I was going to do it, I would give a figure followed by it's explanation and get rid of the pictures or make them a set of uniform styled pictograms.

I do a bit of information graphics myself and find the following useful:
Junk Charts
Information Is Beautiful | Ideas, issues, concepts, subjects - visualized!
information aesthetics - Information Visualization & Visual Communication
FlowingData | Data Visualization and Statistics
Data Store | guardian.co.uk

Simon



Like this prehaps:

[CoolBee]

Interesting stats!

But in terms of the graphics - you could use the pie better I think by ordering it so the slices are adjacent to each other in descending order (unless there is a good reason - not apparent from what we see before us - for having them in that order) and ut the labels for the 3 or 4 biggest contributors right by their slices.

Perhaps group the smaller contributors together and have one of those sectional break out bits.

Alternatively, use a bar chart - but again, I would order it in descending order unless you have a particular reason for using the agency order you have.

The lower chart has too many different graphics. There are a couple of different types of stats there - there are those relating to the number of abused children (eg how many more black than white, how many more girls than boys) and those relating to the impact of the abuse - eg 66% of drug users were abused, teens 3x less likely to practice safe sex etc, and a third slightly more random group of stats.

I would be inclined to group the similar items together instead of scattering them about randomly. Then maybe you could do something with the US map - I don't know, maybe shade it in relevant proportions - maybe one state is 5 x bigger than another so maybe you could use that to illustrate the proportions for girls v boys - or something like that?

I used to manage teams of analysts producing graphical reports for those across the company from highest management to lowliest maintenance worker. One thing you may not realise - many many people - including those in senior management with university degrees - cannot read graphs, don't understand percentages, and WILL NOT tell you.

If you are presenting graphical information, you cannot go wrong by underestimating the ability of your readers to understand it. I trained my analysts that they were never to present a graph to a non-analyst without at least 3 bullet points explaining why it was interesting (analysts having the touching belief that graphs are self-explanatory).

[CoolBee]

Some interesting links there, NewSimon!

[emeadow]

In regards to the pie chart, could you move the titles of say the top 4 or 5 percentages into or right on the pie, and the smaller percentages stay in the legend?

In regards to the overall summary graphic, I am having trouble focusing on it all. So much info all displayed a bit differently, from big bold graphics to lots of detailed data. I find myself really having to study each one and make myself NOT pan down to the end of the article/comments. Could some of the similar stats be summarized in bullet points with abbreviated descriptions? Great info by the way, all important points!

[Brutha]

As someone schooled in statistics:
Pie charts have the effect that the audience has a worse grasp of the actual percentages than bar charts.

3D effects also distract from the actual numbers.

The Child Abuse by the numbers headline has to many visual effects. A font without serifs would probably be better.

It could be more clear which numbers are US specific and which are worldwide.

Use data to tell stories.
Once your graphs say that 52% of reports come from schools and once it says 39% percent. Why is that difference there and what does it mean?

When it comes to abuse statistics you always have to think about whether reporting actually represents the real story.
All successful sexual abuse awareness campaigns raise the number of children that are victims of sexual abuse because a successful campaigns prevents people from looking away.

The font for the sources of the last graphic are much to small.

[IamAlsoThat]

I would agree with brutha also make the fonts clash more.

In the figure relating to girls vs boys abuse... Make it 5x more pink than blue... to visually indicate this... then have the font be white to contrast more. Or perhaps have 5 pink stick figures and one blue stick figure.

Black one also... put black as 2x bigger than white... to visually indicate this difference. or perhaps have 2 black children and one white.

Rather than changing font size change font color to make it contrast more.

The sources is completely illegible at least my resolution. (1024x768)

The pink crayon house does not contrast with the font enough.

Its unclear what the black large person and the three red small people with a decimal have to do with anything in the green background figure

[AdamA]

Thank you everyone for the feedback, I appreciate you taking the time. I think it's pretty spot on what everyone said.

I used to manage teams of analysts producing graphical reports for those across the company from highest management to lowliest maintenance worker. One thing you may not realise - many many people - including those in senior management with university degrees - cannot read graphs, don't understand percentages, and WILL NOT tell you.

- Coolbee, Hmm...that's an interesting fact in itself! And thanks for your ideas!

I do a bit of information graphics myself and find the following useful:

- NewSimon those were some interesting links and I loved your graphic! It was simple, yet it conveyed the info. in a pleasing way.

I tried imitating another layout, but I think I am limited by the fact I don't have an art or design background - is there a way to outsource the overall summary stats? (rent-a-coder??) Anyone have an idea of what the price would be? My goal is to make this a very informative yet easy-to-look-at page.

[NewSimon]

If anyone wants some graphics like this done, PM me. I usually do things for free if there isn't too much.

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by AdamA

Hi guys,

Just wondering what your initial impression of this graphic is (clarity, usefulness):
1) here is Information Picture I'm talking about
2) Should I put it at the top or bottom of the page?
3) How do you find the other pictures?

Feel free to share any other comments.

Thank you in advance.

Hi. I would advise to center-align your website.

I get really annoyed by left-aligned websites and I think there are many other people who do as well.

Cheers.

[DanielWestman]

For those of you who want to learn how to design great information graphics and presentations I can really recommend the book Presentation Zen.

I liked your graphic NewSimon, the simpler the better!

[NewSimon]

Thanks.

Here's the kind of thing that I really love:

Michael Deal - Graphic Design

[AdamA]

Originally Posted by Curtis2011

Hi. I would advise to center-align your website.

I get really annoyed by left-aligned websites and I think there are many other people who do as well.

Cheers.

LOL. Curtis, it's funny that you say this because after reading a graphic design book I changed over my center alignment to left aligned. I'd be curious to know what others think......

[CoolBee]

I'm not sure exactly what you guys mean by 'left aligned' and 'center aligned'.
Do you mean the existence of a left hand sidebar as opposed to one either side, or do you simply mean a site that has any writing justified to the left as opposed to centre-blocked?
If you have a left-hand sidebar, then centre-blocking in the main block looks really weird.

If you mean what I think you mean, I prefer left-aligned (or right-aligned if its Arabic because they read in the other direction).

PS they didn't mean what I thought they meant so this comment is null and void

[NewSimon]

It's when the entire page is of a fixed width and it's either made to stay on the left-hand side of the browser window or the centre.

This is centre-aligned: Brigid Cooling Coaching - Mining Diamonds
This is left aligned:Child Abuse Recovery - Zen Tactics

It makes no difference really, but I think the centre is probably the best choice for large monitors.

[CoolBee]

Aha! Thanks for that! I obviously didn't understand what you meant.
In that case I prefer Center Aligned obviously
Also, that's highlighted to me what the issue with a new site I'm just doing is! Couldn't get it right (in my eyes) now I know why!