Flow chart
158 posts
The following sankey diagram appeared in my Linkedin feed the other day, and I agree with the poster that this is an excellent example. It's an unusual use of a flow chart to show the P&L (profit and loss) statement of a business. It makes sense since these are flows of money. The graph explains how Spotify makes money - or how little profit it claims to have earned on...
A friend found the following chart about the "carbon cycle", and sent me an exasperated note, having given up on figuring it out. The chart came from a report, and was reprinted in Ars Technica (link). The problem with the chart is that the designer is speaking to the choir. One must know a lot about the carbon cycle already to make sense of everything that's going on. We see...
The Wall Street Journal ran this nice compact piece about migration patterns during the pandemic in the U.S. (link to article) I'd look at the chart on the right first. It shows the greatest net flow of people out of the Northeast to the South. This sankey diagram is nicely done. The designer shows restraint in not printing the entire dataset on the chart. If a reader really cares about...
Reader Mirko was concerned about a video published in Germany that shows why the new coronavirus variant is dangerous. He helpfully provided a summary of the transcript: The South African and the British mutations of the SARS-COV-2 virus are spreading faster than the original virus. On average, one infected person infects more people than before. Researchers believe the new variant is 50 to 70 % more transmissible. Here are two...
The graphics team in my hometown paper SCMP has developed a formidable reputation in data visualization, and I lapped every drop of goodness on this beautiful graphic showing how the coronavirus spread around Hong Kong (in the first wave in April). Marcelo uploaded an image of the printed version to his Twitter. This graphic occupied the entire back page of that day's paper. An online version of the chart is...
When I first saw the following chart, I wondered whether it is really that challenging for these eight teams to get into the Rugby World Cup, currently playing in Japan: Another visualization of the process conveys a similar message. Both of these are uploaded to Wikipedia. (This one hasn't been updated and still contains blank entries.) *** What are some of the key messages one would want the dataviz to...
A WSJ chart caught my eye the other day – I spotted someone looking at it in a coffee shop, and immediately got a hold of a copy. The chart plots the ebb and flow of GE’s revenues from the 1980s to the present. What grabbed my attention? The less-used chart form, and the appealing but not too gaudy color scheme. The chart presents a highly digestible view of the...
Here is the start of my blog post about the chart I teased the other day: Today's post deals with the following chart, which appeared recently at Business Insider (hat tip: my sister). It's immediately obvious that this chart requires a heroic effort to decipher. The question shown in the chart title "How many senior investment bankers left their firms?" is the easiest to answer, as the designer places the number...
France is on my mind lately, as I prepare to bring my dataviz seminar to Lyon in a couple of weeks. (You can still register for the free seminar here.) The following Made in France poster brings out all the stereotypes of the French. (You can download the original PDF here.) It's a sankey diagram with so many flows that it screams "it's complicated!" This is an example of a...