U.S. States Budget Gap Heat Map
I like heat maps because I think you can quickly see areas where values are high versus low when they are designed effectively. This data visualization takes a heat map too far. The shading would have been sufficient, in my opinion, to quickly show the states where the budge gap is very high. By adding the values, the reader can see the exact values of the states with a shade other than white. But, in doing so, the heat map becomes cluttered and difficult to use for its intended purpose. The exact values would be better depicted in a bar graph sorted in alpha or descending order and not overlaid in this heat map. What do you think? Is it too much to cram into one visualization?
Most Commented Posts
November 6th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Of course ,I agree with you ,he shouldnt add the data labels, especialy, the title area of the labels shouldnt be filled black.
and ,how about the “white” states ?may they have surplus ，but readers want to know also!
November 6th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Maps are generally a bad choice for showing data IMHO, you can see the problems quite nicely here. The boxes pile up in the northeast and it’s hard to see which states there have a gap and which don’t. For some states like Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, the boxes cover the state almost entirely. What is represented is also budget gaps per area, rather than per population, which is much more interesting.
I agree about a sorted list, perhaps with a small map to point to for the most interesting ones. But as it is, this is a very poor representation of the data.
November 6th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
@Liu – I agree. The black obscures a lot of the state and especially the small states. The legend shouldn’t cover up any of the map (Washington State). I also like the notion that there could be a good story in the white states and their apparent surplus.
@Robert – In the case of the election and data being mapped, I did see an interesting take on the Northeast (smaller) states. On the right side of the map there were boxes for each state with the abbreviation and color. It did make it easier to see.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/president/
I think a map is good for a quick glance, but not any real meaningful analysis.
A small map with a sorted list may be the best bet.
Here are a few good ones that serve their purpose:
http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html
November 7th, 2008 at 7:04 am
If the map is tweaked into a cartogram, and scaled to population, then you get a better perspective. See Mark Newman’s examples:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/
November 12th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Yes. The labels completely clutter the map. They should be in a legend or chart table.
IMO, this type of heat maps are good for showing relationships, especially within large sets of geo-coded data. I’ve used them succesfully to point out the opportunities and indentifying outliers.