Miranda Kalbach

Chart Critique

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/04/us/gun-violence-graphics/

First, this pie (donut?) chart is not the most effective graphic for this type of information. Few says that we should avoid using pie charts whenever possible because it is difficult to compare the sizes of the slices. We have nominal data types (locations) and continuous (percentages and number of incidents). Another piece of information is the interval data type (the years in which the incidents occurred, from 2000-2013). According to Few, this information could be better represented in a bar graph. It seems to show a part-to-whole relationship. The nominal info could be displayed along the horizontal axis, and the percentages could be along the vertical axis.

Additionally, the sequential color scheme throws me off because I was looking for correlations between the locations. In this specific visualization, it serves more as a distraction than anything else. With a bar graph, I would recommend not using any colors to avoid this issue.