Jessica Dixon

1) Good Example

From Preventing Suicide: A Global Imperative: This visualization represents suicide rates (per 100 000 population) by country for the year 2012. The countries offer a spatial element, the year is temporal and the rates are of a continuous nature and are represented as intervals. Because of the spatial element, the World Health Organization chose to use a map of the world to display the data. This is a stationary map which works well because the visualization's purpose is to give us an over view of global suicide rates. Each range of rates is represented by a color on a yellow/red scale consisting of four colors with two additional colors representing either a lack of data or lack of applicability. This color scale adheres to our intuitive nature, allowing the dark red to represent the highest rates. What I think is one of this map's strongest features is although the colors themselves appear differently for colorblind individuals, the distinction between the colors remains when viewing the map using all of the options in the CVD simulator. So, even if someone is red/green colorblind, that individual can still look at this map and determine that the US has a much higher rate of suicide than Mexico. Overall, this map keeps things simple to communicate suicide rates to us, relying on our spatial understanding of the world and inherent assumption that darker colors represent higher occurrences than lighter colors.

2) Bad Examples

From NC Suicide Prevention Plan: This visualization represents the rate of suicide by NC counties from 2009-2011. I chose this example to be in direct opposition to my good example. Once again, we have a spatial element in the counties, a temporal element in the time range, and continuous data represented as intervals in the rates (once again calculated by 100 000 population), along with nominal colors. In this case, the counties are also represented by their names, which frequently do not fit very well within the county borders making the names difficult to read. Adding to this difficulty is the color scheme employed to represent our intervals. Unlike the good example, which adheres to our inherent beliefs about color associations, this map uses four shades of blue and purple, two of which are very similar to one another in that they are both dark. These two dark colors obscure the county text and, furthermore, confuse viewers because neither represents the highest rates. This color problem is only exacerbated when we view it using the blue cone, red, green, and monochromacy colorblindness simulations. White is also employed, but, unlike the good example, it represents the lowest rate rather than a lack of data. To show unreliable data, dots are used. The problem with this arises when we consider that the dots are located right under the colors in the legend, which could be falsely interpreted as representing the highest rates. If we look back to the good example, we can see that WHO places the white and grey beside the color scale. Overall, this map could be employed by possibly removing county names (maybe make it interactive and let people hover over for the names) and sticking to a color scale ranging from light to dark rather than arbitrary color assignment.

From NC Public Health SCHS Report: I hate to keep picking on North Carolina, but this visualization represents the types of firearms used to commit suicide in NC from 1997-2001. Again, we have some spatial data but as it applies to the whole state, a map is not necessary. What we have instead to represent the continuous data (firearm by percentage) is a very unfortunate pie chart. Not only is a pie chart, but it is a 3D pie chart, making distinguishing the angles and filled in area, which we are already not so great at, much more difficult because we are essentially seeing this as if it is on the table in front of us rather than facing us. The choice to use greyscale here is more to do with this information having originally be designed for print, but, that being said, the three pieces which are not dark grey are kind of difficult to discern from one another. This might be due to the angle the chart is presented at though. There is also an odd amount of distances between the shotguns piece and the rifles piece. I am not sure why that is, especially because the shotguns piece is already the easiest to see. Another error that we have here is that, due to rounding, the percentages do not equal 100%. Pie charts are designed to represent percentages; therefore, the slices should add up to 100%. Now, this problem could easily be avoided if a bar chart were employed instead, particularly one without any odd 3D effects. As we learned, our eyes and brain are great at telling differences in length, so we could very easily tell that more handguns are used that shotguns, rifles, or other. The differences in color would matter less, and, because this is print, maybe we could even save money by making all of the bars the same medium grey.

3) Botanical Tree

Let me begin by saying that I have terrible depth perception. If you ever need a good laugh, ask me to play a video game that involves jumping over things and watch as I fail miserably over and over again due to the fact that I cannot tell space between one side of some lava and the other. That being said, I am not the best at evaluating complex 3D representations, because, despite my brain understanding that 2D on top of other 2D indicates foreground versus background, my eyes mostly see flat unless I squint. Thus, for me, the botanical tree appears like a tangled mess, especially the detailed view in figure 13. I have not looked at anyone else's responses to see if this is the general consensus or not, but I am curious. I can conceptually understand how a 3D tree could effectively display information. As far as color goes, everything remains fairly distinguishable except for red/green blindness, which emphasized the tangles for me. I am really curious as to how everyone else viewed this one. After looking at it for a several minutes straight, I have determined, as with other "3D" images, it gives me a headache...not inherently but most likely as a result of squinting at it.

Just realized I forgot to add my honor code statement!!!

I have neither given nor received aid while working on this assignment. I have completed the graded portion BEFORE looking at anyone else's work on this assignment. Signed, Jessica D. Dixon.