Global Economic Dynamics
What is the purpose of this visualization?
According to the Global Economic Dynamics developers, they wanted users to research and illustrate new stories about globalization. They aim to do this by helping the user better understand the growing complexity of economic developments through analyses, visualizations, and policy recommendations. Shown below is the main dashboard that the user is show when they first click on the page.
Link to Visualization: https://viz.ged-project.de/
Who is this visualization made for?
Although not specified in their tutorial video nor on their web-page, my educated guess would be for economics/business students as well as anyone who has a personal fascination in the global economy. There is also abilities to capture and share your own visualization that you made. As well as embed it into a PowerPoint. This reinforces my idea that this was made for the purpose of students who may have a project.
What is the data / How was it collected?
Data used from many different sources. Which include but not limited to the United Nations Comtrade Database, the OECD International Migration Database, and Bank for International Settlements. There are many other Databases involved and the sources tab will indicate when you increase or decrease the number of filters you have. What this data is: the trade, migration, and debt flow that occurs from our current globalized economy.
Questions People May Ask
- How much does Chinese exports compare to the United States?
- Who leads the world in the trade of Petroleum Gas?
- Does Greece import more money than it exports?
Answer Your Questions!
Selecting Countries
You can start out by selecting different specific countries individually or by their Economic Unions. For example you can select the European Union. As well as selecting the different countries you can sort them: alphabetically, by a selected relation, or by a specific indicator. This will update your current list of countries and update your visualization.
Relations Filter
Relations filter has three different clickable selections that you can update the visualization by. The trade option allows you to filter by different material items that each country would import and export. These include but are not limited by Beer, Cars, Cereal, Machinery and Transport equipment, etc. Migration filter shows the migration patterns between the different countries by immigration and emigration numbers as well as the money relation. Lastly you can filter by bank claims, also known as debt that each country owes one another. These 3 different filters and their impact on the visualization have been illustrated below.
Trade (Cars)
Migration
Bank
Country Indicator Filter
You are able to control the different information that is displayed onto the visualization by choosing different indication filters. For example Interest Rates, Gross Domestic Product, Population, etc. This will automatically update the visualization once the filter is added. Below are two different examples of country indicators.
Gross Domestic Product
In relation to the trade of All Goods.
Government Debt and Interest Rate
In relation to the Debt each country owes to each other.
Highlighted Arrows
Specific values arise when the user highlights over a specific arrow on the visualization. This brings up a brief explanation numbers and percentages that define the flow of that certain arrow. Along with this is a difference in diameter of the arrow, larger being more money. In addition to the arrow there is a side-box that pops up to relay the information in a small paragraph explanation.
Legend
There is also a very easy and self explanatory legend that updates with each of the different Relations Filters.
Currency and Year
Lastly you can explore the different relatively current years and change between Euro and the United States Dollar. The selections of different years will change the data being used.
What Works?
In my opinion this visualization is extremely well built. The of finding and changing between different filters is very intuitive and the visualization itself very easy to understand. Minimalist style the web developers is extremely helpful especially when using multiple countries. Ability to choose and select a specific relation between two countries even though there are many involved is phenomenal. I truly do believe this visualization fulfills its purpose.
Needs Improvement?
Although there are many amazing features to this visualization I believe that there could be some improvements. Starting with the arrows it would've been easier to differentiate between the import and export if the arrows themselves were color coded in accordance to legend. I feel the need to hover over the arrow for it to display where it was going was a bit annoying. I also believe that the arrows being used should have the point already displayed. This would help show which way the flow is going without the need to hover over the arrow. Although I believe these things may have been designed this way to encourage the user to spend more time finagling with the visualization. But if it were for the purpose to purely be a visualization, I believe these improvements should be made.