Data Vis Analysis Assignment
The Visualization on the cost of living in Europe, based on New York City's cost, does a great job of explaining the cost of living clearly through different coloured hexagons. There is also a cost-of-living index with different colours; this range is from 27.1 to 131.3 with a value of 100. Further, there is a graph which outlines the cost of restaurant food, rent, local purchasing power and cost of living and rent. Lastly, there is a feature where you can select the exact country you want out of all of Europe to see everything that was listed above.
I could answer questions on the data based off of the year 2022, however, there is no data from any other years, so I could not ask a question about that. Wanting to know the highest or lowest value of a certain category could be answered, but, would have to be done by individually hovering over every country of Europe which is time consuming.
There is not much to be confused about while looking at the two visualizations; the spider graph is self-explanatory with the point facing to the different categories of cost of living, restaurant prices etc. The hexagon shapes that represent the cost of Living in Europe is easy to follow and use as you hover over the country to see its value.
A bar chart or line graph could have allowed for different years of the costs of each country, however, in this case a bar chart would simply not be able to fit all the different costs and countries to make it legible.
Over all, the visualizations were interactive and simple to use; for the cost of living of each country you would just have to hover over each; dark blue is a low cost of living while orange is a high cost seen with the labelled index legend below the hexagons. The option of being able to select any country you want for the spider graph is interactive because it allows for comparing and contrasting and is helpful if you are doing research or collecting data on cost of living, grocery/restaurant prices purchasing power and rent.
You described the data visualization very thoroughly and I can tell you are knowledgeable to what the data is trying to convey. However, I am confused on the "cost of living index" values and how it signifies the amount/value of living in Europe. When trying to mentally picture what these values of 27.1 - 131.3 are describing, it is difficult to put that into perspective. It would be informative to have mentioned that to someone who isn't relatively knowledgeable on range and perspective in that format, you could offer a different format of data visualization that could better present it.
ReplyDeleteI am really intrigued by this visual chart you chose. I do agree that it is inconvenient to have to interact with the data set in order to be able to actually see your data, before you analyze it. I would say that it also destroys the purpose of visual data the first place if it requires such an impractical method in the first place.
ReplyDeleteHi Aidan, I like how you described how the data visualization works. I think the one critique I would have about this chart is with trying to decipher each name of the country just by its abbreviated form, but perhaps when you hover over it, it would have the full name of the country.
ReplyDeleteHi Aiden, you did a great job explaining the way this visual chart works! I liked the spider graph such a simple graph and easy to follow. However, I think it looks more like an art or design, not a data visualization! I don't know based on what they decided to choose the shape of a beehive and then you have to click on each cell to see the data which does not represent the purpose of data visualization! one can simply write down the data instead of this beehive design!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your explanation and agree that the spider graph is self-explanatory. Since you do have to click on each cell to see the data more clearly, I agree that a bar/line graph might allow for different years of the costs of each country but you'd be able to see the cell data more clearer.
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