Workbook Exercises

Controlling Color - Week One

The headings do not need color in this diagram as there are many colors included in the chart. Black bolder headings will make the words clearer and draw the readers’ eyes to them faster. We can remove the orange color from the title “How We Spend Our Time.” We can also remove the orange highlight on the headings “Millionaires” and “General Population. Lastly, we can remove color in the headings on the bars such as “Active Leisure”, “Passive Leisure” etc.
We can group the variables by using fewer colors by using one color for each category (millionaires or general population). This way, there is a clear difference between both of the categories that we can see visually and it is much simpler with only 2 colors other than black involved.
To draw attention to the active and passive leisure columns, we can remove color from everything, make the bars gray and make the bars for active and passive leisure colored. This way, the attention of the reader is drawn to both of these categories. The bars that are higher will be colored green and lower colored yellow, so that the reader can see a clear story based on the color choices.
We can maintain seven colors without overwhelming the reader by using the rainbow colors as a border for the graph. This gives the graph some personality without completely overwhelming the reader due to so many colors appearing at the same time.

I worked with the simple, unclear bar chart. Four elements of this chart that contribute to a lack of clarity are:

The upside down bars: the length of these bars confuses the reader as the more negative an amount is, the higher the bar is in the opposite direction. As a reader, I was initially confused by the amount since lower values usually correlate to smaller bars for me, but here it is the opposite for the negative values.
The names of the countries being sideways on the bottom: it is difficult to read the names of the countries quickly because they are turned to the side, so I have to take extra effort in order to properly read them.
The colors: the colors used do not make sense or point out any specific trends in the graph. They contribute to a lack of clarity because they are an extra visual aspect that doesn’t add any meaning to the chart. The colors do not help to tell the story at all.
The y axis: the measurement is deviation, but this is unclear as it is a small, horizontally placed label on the y axis along with unclear measurements. This should be added to the title for more clarity on what the measurements in the graph are. In the new version I sketched, I made sure to include the labeling of what the measurements on the y axis are in the title. Additionally, I colored the graphs to show that there was a housing bubble when there were large deviations, which paints a story for the graph for the viewer and makes it clearer. I also made sure to arrange the bars horizontally so that the country names can be read and associated better.

IMG_7358 (1)

For this graph, I wanted to highlight the totals by filling in the colors for each of the types of contact. I did this by filling in each line graph’s total area that it covered. For the line graphs that overlapped, I filled in the portions of the higher sum.

Since the comparison of phone vs in person was wanted, I decided to remove the other lines including the total amount. This reduces clutter and only shows the lines which are being compared for an easier, clearer comparison.

Since the user wanted trends for specific years, I separated the graph into two graphs so that there is one graph per year, for 2015 and 2016. I then labeled the graphs with the years clearly so that a viewer will be able to see the difference in both.

For digital vs non-digital for each year, I kept the format the same in the previous graph except for the fact that I removed most lines on the graphs in order to show the differences between digital and nondigital; I only kept the lines for online and offline contact.

For this graph, I kept just the total amount and included a line of best fit in order to show the general trends of the contact from students over the time period. This shows the general trend clearer and emphasizes overall increases and decreases.

For this graph, I decided to keep just the virtual contacts and phone contacts lines on the graph so that it is clearly showing the relationship between both of them and comparing them next to each other without additional clutter.

The chart unfairly manipulates the user in many ways. The first is that the Y-axis measurements are not equal on both sides. The left side’s measurement ends on a much higher number (1000) than the right side’s highest number (200). This gives the impression that the Elan share price is somehow higher than Pomme share price, which is untrue. The other manipulation is the lines of the graph. The graph is drawn to show that the Elan line is going above the Pomme line, as if Elan’s end value is much higher than Pomme. However, this is not true since the scales differ, and Pomme is actually much higher than Elan, despite Elan increasing at a higher pace. Another manipulation of the graphs is that the title indicates a story that does not necessarily match the graph’s visual. The title indicates that Elan has overtaken Pomme, but the graph’s mismatched values confuse the viewer as to whether they have done this or not.

This version better reflects reality since the Y axis of both stock prices are the same, so they are on equal ground in the graph. This allows both stock price changes to be equally compared with the same measurement system.

This graph shows the difference in stock price for each stock in the designated time period. This shows that Elan is a better investment because its price went up and is increasing positively, and that Pomme’s price went down and is not increasing like Elan’s is. Elan’s bar is colored green to show that it is the better investment, while Pomme’s bar is colored red to show that it is the worse investment.