Put a dot on the map for each data point, or colour regions if that’s how the data is.
Given this is effectively one piece of data (% of income on rent) you can colour it on a scale. A red dot is 100% on rent. A green dot is 0% on rent. Colours in between represent middle states.
I actually prefer this though, easier to see detail instead of having to compare shades of colours, our brains have issues with that sometimes. (This can be avoided with a good colour scheme I guess?)
Greatly prefer this as well. It’s a lot easier to tell the difference between 50 and 75% with a pie chart than it is with your eyeballs looking at how similar or different two colors are.
Scrap the pie charts. It’s a lot easier to see the difference between 50 and 55% when it’s represented as the coloured part of a column representing 100% Pie charts only work when the difference are big enough.
Do you have an example? For me, it would be very difficult to tell the difference between a single color that’s a mix of 50% blue, 50% green, vs 45% blue, 55% green, and have any kind of idea what value they corresponded to. But with a pie chart, it’s easy.
Are you talking about this kind of bar chart kind of thing?
(picture attached)
For me, this wouldn’t work as well on a map because a pie chart is kind of like a big point, but the rectangular shape of the column would look weird on a map. You wouldn’t know where the center of the column was supposed to be as easily as the pie chart is clearly directly on top of the city it’s talking about.
But most of this seems like it is about subjective tastes rather than peer-reviewed studies on what kind of map is more useful.
I probably would not even make a map of the data in the first place. I would just have a bar chart like you drew, because the amount of data is so low, and their geographical position does not offer much additional information or context.
But most of this seems like it is about subjective tastes rather than peer-reviewed studies on what kind of map is more useful.
Funnily enough, I am actually taking a cartography class at uni right now, and a map (on the left) almost like this is in our textbook. The author then showed a redesign (on the right) where he uses columns for representing the statistics as bars instead of numbers.
I’m aware it’s not an exact 1-1 example, but I think you’ll agree that the one on the right is more successful in communicating the differences between states (which I am assuming is the purpose OP’s map as well). This book is as far as I know peer-reviewed and the most authoritative guide on map design in Denmark at least. The author Lars Brodersen is well-respected in his field. According to him, there are certain guidelines when it comes to visual design, that make for better, more useful maps.
Definitely. Believe it or not, I am also a cartography student, although in America, the map on the left in your textbook has way too much data that it’s trying to communicate, but the map that OP posted since it is just one point on the map for each city. I think it’s okay.
To your point about should it really be a map for us non-Europeans, the map contains so much more information than just a list of cities. We have the context of how close places are to each other, what countries the cities are in, etc. I think the map is way more useful to me rather than just a list of cities and their bar charts.
I really like the type of column that the map on the right has where you can tell that the base of the column is the geographical point on the map based on the 3D effect. In the amount of time I’ve spent in class I haven’t learned how to make an effect like that, but I would know how to make a pie chart as a point.
We have the context of how close places are to each other, what countries the cities are in
There are no country names, only the names of the capital cities, so if what you say is true, the user is required first to know
that the cities are in fact capitals
which countries the cities are the capitals of
the general size of Europe as whole to know distance between cities
Especially point one and two are not common knowledge. Most Europeans would not know that Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia, for instance. It could be easily fixed by changing “cities” to “capitals” in the legend. But I would still argue that the low amount of data does not warrant the map, if the purpose is to compare across cities.
Sidenote: What scholars and textbooks do you use for theory in the US?
I don’t remember the authors of my textbook, but it was called something like principles of cartography and map design. We didn’t learn the names of any particular scholars.
We spent a lot of time learning about color choices, labelling, balance, etc.
We also learned that while some things are conventions in cartography, some things are just a matter of taste.
Without being the designer of this map, I can only speak to how I read the map. First of all, when you’re talking about cities, those are inherently geographical, so it makes sense to have them in a map rather than only in a list.
To me, knowing what countries the cities are in or if the city is a capital or not is not that interesting. If that was important data to convey, then you might want to design the map differently.
The interesting thing to me is seeing how much of the income goes towards rent, comparatively. Like, whoa, Lisbon is much worse than the other places that are nearby. Pie charts do well conveying rough percentages, and are relatively easy to design in software. So for me, I like this map, but I get why you would prefer the bar version that you shared in your textbook.
You could argue and I would agree that if lots of people are turned off by pie charts, then the map would be less offensive and more effective if it used a different method of visualization that did not distract from the data it is conveying.
Honestly, what probably bothers me the most about this map is its dumb projection.
How much sense does a heatmap make if you have one data point per country? Also, I don’t know what you mean by dots? (Asking to understand)
Put a dot on the map for each data point, or colour regions if that’s how the data is.
Given this is effectively one piece of data (% of income on rent) you can colour it on a scale. A red dot is 100% on rent. A green dot is 0% on rent. Colours in between represent middle states.
I actually prefer this though, easier to see detail instead of having to compare shades of colours, our brains have issues with that sometimes. (This can be avoided with a good colour scheme I guess?)
Greatly prefer this as well. It’s a lot easier to tell the difference between 50 and 75% with a pie chart than it is with your eyeballs looking at how similar or different two colors are.
Scrap the pie charts. It’s a lot easier to see the difference between 50 and 55% when it’s represented as the coloured part of a column representing 100% Pie charts only work when the difference are big enough.
Do you have an example? For me, it would be very difficult to tell the difference between a single color that’s a mix of 50% blue, 50% green, vs 45% blue, 55% green, and have any kind of idea what value they corresponded to. But with a pie chart, it’s easy.
Are you talking about this kind of bar chart kind of thing?
(picture attached)
For me, this wouldn’t work as well on a map because a pie chart is kind of like a big point, but the rectangular shape of the column would look weird on a map. You wouldn’t know where the center of the column was supposed to be as easily as the pie chart is clearly directly on top of the city it’s talking about.
But most of this seems like it is about subjective tastes rather than peer-reviewed studies on what kind of map is more useful.
I probably would not even make a map of the data in the first place. I would just have a bar chart like you drew, because the amount of data is so low, and their geographical position does not offer much additional information or context.
Funnily enough, I am actually taking a cartography class at uni right now, and a map (on the left) almost like this is in our textbook. The author then showed a redesign (on the right) where he uses columns for representing the statistics as bars instead of numbers.
I’m aware it’s not an exact 1-1 example, but I think you’ll agree that the one on the right is more successful in communicating the differences between states (which I am assuming is the purpose OP’s map as well). This book is as far as I know peer-reviewed and the most authoritative guide on map design in Denmark at least. The author Lars Brodersen is well-respected in his field. According to him, there are certain guidelines when it comes to visual design, that make for better, more useful maps.
Definitely. Believe it or not, I am also a cartography student, although in America, the map on the left in your textbook has way too much data that it’s trying to communicate, but the map that OP posted since it is just one point on the map for each city. I think it’s okay.
To your point about should it really be a map for us non-Europeans, the map contains so much more information than just a list of cities. We have the context of how close places are to each other, what countries the cities are in, etc. I think the map is way more useful to me rather than just a list of cities and their bar charts.
I really like the type of column that the map on the right has where you can tell that the base of the column is the geographical point on the map based on the 3D effect. In the amount of time I’ve spent in class I haven’t learned how to make an effect like that, but I would know how to make a pie chart as a point.
There are no country names, only the names of the capital cities, so if what you say is true, the user is required first to know
Especially point one and two are not common knowledge. Most Europeans would not know that Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia, for instance. It could be easily fixed by changing “cities” to “capitals” in the legend. But I would still argue that the low amount of data does not warrant the map, if the purpose is to compare across cities.
Sidenote: What scholars and textbooks do you use for theory in the US?
I don’t remember the authors of my textbook, but it was called something like principles of cartography and map design. We didn’t learn the names of any particular scholars.
We spent a lot of time learning about color choices, labelling, balance, etc.
We also learned that while some things are conventions in cartography, some things are just a matter of taste.
Without being the designer of this map, I can only speak to how I read the map. First of all, when you’re talking about cities, those are inherently geographical, so it makes sense to have them in a map rather than only in a list.
To me, knowing what countries the cities are in or if the city is a capital or not is not that interesting. If that was important data to convey, then you might want to design the map differently.
The interesting thing to me is seeing how much of the income goes towards rent, comparatively. Like, whoa, Lisbon is much worse than the other places that are nearby. Pie charts do well conveying rough percentages, and are relatively easy to design in software. So for me, I like this map, but I get why you would prefer the bar version that you shared in your textbook.
You could argue and I would agree that if lots of people are turned off by pie charts, then the map would be less offensive and more effective if it used a different method of visualization that did not distract from the data it is conveying.
Honestly, what probably bothers me the most about this map is its dumb projection.
It’s great for detail, but bad for getting a general look. Could get busy with more data points.
I think it’s a good choice for this particular map, but I could imagine a different map with more cities which would be a bad choice for pie charts.