The visualizations we use for #MakeoverMonday are usually in need of a makeover but sometimes we use visuals that are already really good, and they cover an interesting topic or really good dataset.
This week we’re looking at crops – what’s grown, how efficient are the crops and how popular and profitable are they. The original visualization comes from Information is Beautiful.
What works well:
-
The unit bar chart at the top looks great! It’s very neat and easy to read.
-
The sorting of the first column is clear (but it would be nice to have the option to sort by the other metrics).
-
The definitions for the different metrics is useful and concise.
What could be improved:
-
The colors are a bit meh. I understand the use of green for ‘planted’, but then the rest of the colors kind of go with the theme and kind of don’t. I wouldn’t combine the greens with the brownish red.
-
The second chart has similar colors but they have a different meaning.
-
The bubbles don’t seem to be sorted in any particular order and I find that chart to be so large that it’s difficult to see on one screen to take in the relation of the size of each bubble to the others.
What I did:
-
I noticed sugar cane and sugar beet production ranking in the top 5 crops for each region so decided to focus on this.
-
Noticeable is not just the production volume but also that sugar beet is much more popular in Europe than the other regions, due to the climate there.
