Maps in News: inspiration and critique

[pkd2512]

Bring an example of map-based visualisation and discuss:

• the type of map/viz used
• the data being shown
• your takeaway from reading the visualisation
• what you love about it
• what you could do better

Some places to look for inspiration besides Google and ChatGPT: https://prasantakrdutta.notion.site/Taste-and-Inspiration-04727c9aba4c4fc19b9278f157b5ed5c#dacecd07847c4338bbf321d187f997c6

[buzzgod]

Data viz - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/05/13/us/covid-deaths-us-one-million.html

The article uses a dynamic, scroll-based data visualization consisting of a dot-density chart where each dot represents a single life lost to COVID-19. The visualization evolves as you scroll, revealing more granular demographic and geographic information.

Data Being Shown:
Total number of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. (1 million).
Demographic breakdowns: age, race, ethnicity, and geography.
Time-based progression of deaths.

Takeaway from Reading the Visualization:
The immense scale of 1 million lives lost becomes emotionally impactful when visualized as individual dots.
The visualization highlights disparities in the impact of COVID-19 among different demographics and geographic regions, emphasizing systemic inequalities.

What You Love About It:
Emotional Impact: The visualization humanizes the numbers by representing each death individually, creating a strong emotional connection.
Interactive Storytelling: The scroll-based approach keeps readers engaged while progressively revealing insights.
Simplicity and Clarity: The minimalistic design ensures focus on the data and its meaning without distractions.

What Could Be Done Better:
Contextual Details: Include brief explanations or annotations to contextualize disparities more effectively (e.g., systemic healthcare inequalities).
Interactive Exploration: Allow users to filter or hover over sections to explore specific data points or demographics in more depth.
Comparison: Provide side-by-side comparisons of COVID-19 impact versus other major health crises for perspective.
Accessibility: Ensure the design is fully accessible, with alt text, keyboard navigation, and colorblind-friendly palettes.

[Anandana0298]

Example- A different opening, the River Seine scenario

Data being shown- The article illustrates the preparations and possible concerns that became a byproduct of hosting the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics 2024 at the river Seine.

What draws me- A beautiful piece combining illustrative and cartographic approaches to inform a reporting.

One key learning- While the story takes us across various sections of the river, it also provides us with a broader context to keep the story grounded.

Possible improvements- The subsequent visual style of the 'history' section breaks from the rest of the story. (Doesn't work too badly)

[animesh-bajia]

Example- HOW WILL YOUR CITY FEEL IN THE FUTURE? by: Derek Taylor
https://pudding.cool/2024/06/climate-zones/

1. The type of map/viz used?
   Categorical map is being use to show, Arid, Tropical, Temperature, Cold, polar.

2. The data being shown?
   German scientist Wladimir Köppen attempted to bridge the gap between climate and weather by using vegetation growth, average temperature, and precipitation levels to classify the world into five distinct climate zones.

3. Your takeaway from reading the visualization?
   With the increase in time there are many country which shift towards the Arid side for eg. Los Angeles.

4. What you love about it?
   I like the part where it shows the global temperature shift from the present day to 2070.

5. What you could do better?
   The shifting of countries on the bottom panel, can be done on the map itself, by highlighting those specific countries.

[DhvaniJ]

Maps in News: inspiration and critique

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-ai-power-home-appliances/

AI Needs So Much Power, It’s Making Yours Worse

By Leonardo Nicoletti Naureen Malik Andre Tartar Technology

Interactive Heat Map Scrollytelling
Line charts

Data Shown:
The visualization presents data on the locations of AI data centers, their energy consumption rates, and the resulting strain on local power grids. This includes metrics such as megawatts consumed and the percentage increase in local energy demand attributed to these centers.

Takeaway from the Visualization:
The visualizations effectively highlight the significant energy demands of AI data centers and their impact on local power infrastructures. They underscore the need for sustainable energy solutions and strategic planning to accommodate the rapid growth of AI technologies.

What works well
• The layering of information on static map on scroll
• The layering of information on legend as well
• The dark theme color palette also works well with the topic related to AI and Power related topic which is showcasing a warning too.
• The text styling for information paragraphs on scrolls is also like something when copy pasted from dark mode of chatgpt so it might be an inspiration from that may be which goes well with the theme.

May be:
• The change in maps is evident, but the change in legends is obstructed by the paragraph text so becomes less evident.
• Quantitative data added to story paragraphs can be managed better by directly showing in the map.

[tanishigola]

Analysis of the current linguistic situation in the world

Made by the Puff Puff Team during the DensityDesign Course 2013-14
Link to the narrative: http://www.puffpuffproject.com/languages.html

They have used three map-based representations in this visualization. This is one of them.

Type of map:

• Static filter-based representation; points/dots to represent data

Data being shown:

• The various languages that are spoken all over the world
• What are the top 10 language families that are most spoken
• What is the flow/exchange of these languages from their original place

Takeaway from the viz:

• The most spoken languages in the world are only a handful.
• Mandarin is the most spoken language. Even though it has less spread than other languages, for example, English, it is probably because of the population size of China that it is the most spoken.

What did I love?

• A mix of geographic data and other representations.
• Simple scrolls; in a linear form.
• It was not just data representation, but also qualitative information that was shared.

What could have been better?

• Maybe the first and the second map could have been one after the other in terms of a zoomed-out view and a zoomed-in view. The qualitative information in between them could have been put above.
• The "What's WOLD" section suddenly was placed as a big section break. It could have been a smaller information snippet.

[Sarbottama]

How Far Is Too Far

https://pudding.cool/2017/09/clinics/

Explores how long it takes to get from different parts of a city to the center using public transport.
Observations - scroll-triggered isochrone map (travel time maps) that changes with each city.

Narrative Flow- Each section focuses on a different city.
Minimal Interaction, mostly scrolling, but no custom user input.
Lacks additional filtering options like transport modes,etc

If I had to redesign maybe I would help users control interactivity like selecting modes of commute, maybe better layering of maps

[d-puk]

Interactive Map Visualisation - Inspiration

The Straits Times' piece on the journey of a microplastic particle into larger patches of plastic in the world's oceans.

• The type of map used is a globe projection
• Data being shown is of a path and an area. A line is used to trace the path of a microplastic particle along ocean currents in the Indian Ocean. A point and texture is used to show a garbage patch in the ocean
• The story sheds light on lesser known plastic garbage patches around the world.
• I like the focus on the journey of the particle, from the most tangible interaction humans have with them, to where they end up. The use of the animated washing machine and marine animals underlines the impact plastics have on marine life.
• I think the dots could have been enclosed in a border to demarcate the patch better. Or based on data, the dot texture could have been denser for garbage patches with a lot of volume.

[Nisha10140]

The World According to China

Type of map
An interactive choropleth world map highlighting China’s foreign investments.

Data Shown

• China’s share of total foreign investment in various countries (shown as percentage values).
• Circle size indicates how dominant China’s investments are relative to other foreign investors in each country.
• Color coding differentiates between high-risk and low-risk investment destinations.

Takeaway from map

• It effectively conveys the scale and geographical spread of China's investments
• China is heavily investing in resource-rich and strategically important regions, including Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia
• It highlights China’s economic influence and how its investment strategy aligns with geopolitical interests.

What I love about it

• The interactivity allows for an engaging exploration of the data, making it easy to see investment trends in different regions.
• The design being, with a simple but effective color scheme makes the data easy to interpret.

What Could Be Done Better

• Current map jumps from 2005 to 2013 instantly. A time-series feature showing how investment patterns have evolved over the years would add depth.
• Placing the legend at the top-left or a fixed side panel would make it more accessible at first glance.
• The visualization does not indicate which industries China is investing in (e.g., energy, infrastructure, finance).Using different colors or filters for sectors would make it more informative

[ch0psuey21]

On Upward Mobility by Aaron Williams

1. Opening Image

Type: Line drawing & images
Purpose: ?
Improve: Could have been used to locate California on the US map to set the context.

2. Legend

Type: Map with marks
Purpose: To show cities the author moved to as we scroll thought his story.
I like: The simplicity, serves its purpose well.

3. Path Density of Cities

Type: Road Network Map
Purpose: Shows density & sprawl in the city
I like: How it builds on the idea of people moving to bigger cities for more opportunity.

4. The First Great Migration

Type: Symbol Map with Spike Marks (Spike marks show direction of change and colour gradient shows magnitude of spike)
Purpose: Percent change in Black population by city from 1910 to 1940
I like: Easy to read and see trends

5. Comparison between the cities and their trends

Type: Radial Bar chart variation
Purpose: Comparing black neighborhoods and median income trends between two cities
I like: Scrolly animation appearance of chart with each category
Improve: Could do something with previously assigned colours to the two cities

[SiddhantKNID]

North's “gifts of sincerity”

Article talks about
Location-based data of balloons based on different waves
what all things ballon was carring
how ballons have effected flight route

https://www.reuters.com/graphics/NORTHKOREA-SOUTHKOREA/TRASH/klvynygmjpg/

improvement : Interaction or animation on map from where to where

[anushaa20]

White Christmas: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-christmas-snow-data/?srnd=phx-graphics-v2

About the map: The article uses the map of America to show which areas experienced snow on the day of Christmas and the depth of snow on ground

Abortion Mazes: https://pudding.cool/2024/10/abortion-mazes/

About the map:

[kokoberry21]

Komal

### How China built the world’s largest high-speed rail network
https://multimedia.scmp.com/infographics/news/china/article/3200811/high-speed-railway/index.html

The map talks about the Growth trajectory of China's high-speed rail network from its inception in 2008 till 2020 and the expanse in km. Also, the projection of network in 2025.

What I like about it?

1. For every year of network growth, the previous projection of the rail network is subtly shown as the background, while the newly added growth is highlighted.
2. I liked the incremental progress visually

What can be improved?
They could have introduced a section comparing China's high-speed rail network with other countries on a map. May be that could give a depth to the storytelling.

[rashmib30]

Australian fires: Understanding the intensity and global impact:

https://multimedia.scmp.com/infographics/news/world/article/3046510/australian-fires/index.html

the type of map/viz used: Globe projection

the data being shown: This article shows how the Australian fire started & how it spread, even to South America

your takeaway from reading the visualization: How it affected the Australian weather - @019 was the driest & hottest year in the continent from 1900. How huge the smokes created by the fire were - they had reached a height of 17km & the smoke travelled around across the Pacific to South America

what you love about it: I love the simple yet effective style of illustration used to depict the path followed by smoke & how they depicted the height of the smoke using different references

what you could do better: Maybe a bit more elaborative? on the end, like how it continued to affect for coming years. & the more stronger visual style, to depict its intensity

https://1812.tass.ru/en

the data being shown: This article shows how Napoleon Ventured East

what you love about it: the parallel storytelling of the map & content; usage of same map but in different contexts - helps to understand how he expanded the kingdom, chronologically; also visual style

https://mappingdiversity.eu/

[Sanket86400]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2024/jan/30/how-war-destroyed-gazas-neighbourhoods-visual-investigation

Type of Map/Visualization Used
Area Map (Satellite imagery with interactive overlays and annotations.)

Data Shown:
The data shows high-resolution satellite imagery of Gaza’s neighborhoods before and after the war, highlighting the destruction of residential areas, critical facilities, and infrastructure. It marks damaged and destroyed buildings, providing a visual representation of the scale of devastation.

What I Loved:
The side-by-side comparison of satellite imagery effectively highlights the extent of destruction.
Relevant Videos to refer.

What Could Be Better:
population density or before-and-after stories would have given more data

[shivamarya10]

https://www.drugtestinnocence.org/

About the visualization:
Drug Test Innocence is an online resource that uncovers the devastating impact of inaccurate field drug tests, which today are the largest source of wrongful arrests and convictions in the United States. The website provides a detailed presentation of the issue based on research and real cases and offers considerations and solutions on how to limit that impact.

What I like?

The unfolding of the narrative, from initial problem to the map, stories and at last guiding viewers to take action.

What I would like to redesign?

The overall design could be integrated with existing dataset along with the story to showcase how the various states have reported wrong drug test.

https://vvv.vev.site/unodc-syntheticdrugstrategy-en/