education

What works

This visually arresting graphic does a great job of presenting data about national spending in an apolitical but altogether fascinating way. It’s interactive, by the way, but I’m not commenting on the interactive part, just the static graphic. I find that getting the static graphic clear is an important first step towards making a functional interactive graphic. If ever I hear someone say ‘but it’s interactive’ as an excuse for having a weak static graphic, I cringe. See my post about the USDA mypyramid food guide for a case study on the importance of a strong relationship between the static and interactive iterations of graphics as tools.

Each dot represents a different department or governmental program with the size corresponding to the funding level. Smart.

If you link through to the originating site, you’ll be able to follow blog posts that take readers through the development of the graphic. They ask for input and do their best to incorporate it. I like that approach. Good use of technology, OKF.

What needs work

I can’t quite tell why the circles are arranged the way they are or why their hues are the shades they are. Graphics, especially the beautiful ones, are the best when their simple clarity gives way to an elegant complexity. In other words, when I pose the question: “why does the hue vary within given funding types?” I’d like the graphic to lead me to an answer. I’m sure there is a reason for each hue, I just haven’t been able to figure it out.

One tiny, American-centric request: Add ‘UK’ to the page or the graphic somewhere. Maybe change “Total spending” to “Total UK spending”. Or “Where does my money go?” could be “Where do UK taxes go?”. These here interwebs are global. Yes, of course, the £ symbol tends to give it away. Maybe I’m just being too picky.

References

Open Knowledge Foundation. (2009) “Where does my money go?” United Kingdom. Data available

The key

Number of Adults in Each Prose Literacy Level

Prose Literacy

* Below Basic:
o no more than the most simple and concrete literacy skills
* Basic:
o can perform simple and everyday literacy activities
* Intermediate:
o can perform moderately challenging literacy activities
* Proficient:
o can perform complex and challenging literacy activities

What works

This is a simple way to do a bar graph when all of your bars will add up to 100%. Just think: they could have laid this information out in a standard bar graph with a separate bar for each level of literacy. This way, it’s easier to see that all these parts add up to a whole population.

It is alarming that there are more people ‘below basic’ than ‘proficient’ especially in the increasingly text-based world we live in. Emails and chat clients have replaced many phone calls which is especially critical for workers. (I wonder if on a per-communication basis it costs more to use the phone. Anyone seen data?)

What needs work

I would have tried to get the categories labeled within the graphic itself. Referring to a bulleted list is a bit cumbersome. On the other hand, I appreciate the desire to thoroughly describe what each categorical label actually means, and it would have been hard to elegantly place all those words into the graphic.

References

National Assessment of Adult Literacy. (2003) Demographics overall.