Infographics and Data Vizualisation MOOC #iidviz
I’ve been taking part in the Infographics and Data Vizualisation MOOC via The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas (University of Texas, Austin). The course is lead by Alberto Cairo, reknowned data journalist and author of “The Functional Art”.
The first assignments were analysis of infographics and datavisualizations. I will revisit each in due course. The final two assignments for the class require students to dig deep into data and find stories to tell. Software products we were encouraged to use were Adobe Illustrator and Tableau. We ere lucky to have an extended version of the Tableau Desktop trial to use and I’ve made it a point to try and make the most of the opportunity to try and learn new skills. At $900 USD I don’t think i’ll be purchasing it anytime soon. Fortunately there is a “free” option, Tableau Public. Despite its limitations the free option is still a very powerful piece of kit to work with.
Two weeks ago everyone was given the report “KPMG’s Individual Income Tax and Social Security Rate Survey 2012” as the basis for a project.
The guidelines were as follows:
Your second assignment this week is to read the report (both the copy and the graphics) and come up with an idea of how to visualize those data in an interactive graphic. As in Week 3, you don’t need to create an entire graphic, but to focus on designing a visual mock-up, a storyboard, that explains how it should look like and how it should work. Obviously, if you are already well versed in design/visualization, you should try to create a real graphic.
You don’t need to use ALL data. You could focus on just one of the many topics covered in it.
Ask yourself the following questions when working on the assignment:
1. What kind of graphic or set of graphics would you need to show these figures appropriately?
2. How would you extract meaning out of this data?
3. What copy (headline, subheads, notes) do you need to make the graphic and the stories it tells clear?
4. How would you give context to the data?
5. How would you navigate the graphic?
6. Are there other datasets you could combine with the current one to make your graphic more interesting?
Here is my submission verbatim as posted to the student forum.
Preamble: I really, really, really struggled with this Tax project. It took quite a while before I realised that KMPG’s analysis of Europe is somewhat flawed. I ended up writing a sort of news story which helped me to focus on the data and try to extract meaning.
The more I reasearched the economic climate here in the UK, the Crown Dependencies and the Greater EU the perplexed I was about some of the conclusions that KPMG seems to have arrived at. I’ve been on Aspberger’s overload for over a week - so I hope this is logical and makes sense.
I also didn’t get Tableu Public working until this afternoon, .
So…
Please read the story below and then follow the link to the related Tableau Public Workbook.
note: the story has a number of links that expand on the subject.
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THE STORY
Individual Income Tax & Social Security in the UK, its Crown Dependencies and the European Union
KPMG has released its annual global survey of personal income and taxes.
The Individual Income Tax and Social Security Survey for 2012 purports to “show how taxes have changed over a period of time, with the aim of drawing conclusions on how people are taxed in different parts of the world and how different governments approach the difficult task of raising funds for necessary public services without losing the support of their citizens”. In keeping with their business as accountants for corporations and high net worth individuals, KPMG’s Survey uses Gross Income examples of USD $100K and $300K to illustrate the top tax rates worldwide assuming that an individual is single with no children.
Though said to be verified by participating KPMG member firms based on current regulations in their respective countries, the data driving the Survey actually comes from the Organisation for Economic Development and Co-Operation (OECD), an international economic Think Tank founded in 1960 to “promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world”. Current OECD membership stands at 34 countries who are able (and willing) to pay for membership and put funds (from taxes) towards its annual budget (EUR 347 million for 2012) and overlook long-standing criticisms against its Multilateral Agreement on Investment, actions against competitive tax practices and soft laws which influence member nation government policy.
An unfortunate failure with this Survey is that countries are organised by Sub-Region according to United Nations definitions. The European Region is broken down according to Cardinal direction with no consideration of the European Union (EU), the European Economic Area (EEA) or the Euro Area (Eurozone), this despite the “EU Average” data supplied by the OECD.
Membership in, as well as agreements with, the EU have a direct impact on the government policy (especially taxes and social security) and economy of participating nations. As with the OECD, member nations of the EU pay towards the annual EU Budget from taxes raised at home. The OECD has been a consistent advocate of the Austerity measures decimating the economies of the UK and its EU partners still smarting from the fallout of the 2007 sub-prime mortgage crisis, the UK Banking Rescues of 2008 and 2009 and the ensuing Recession which continues to bite. However, as the OECD’s analysis of the UK revealed last week, the true victims of ‘slash and burn’ cuts and tax raises to reduce government deficits are the poorest in society, not middle and high earners.
It is important to note that current UK Prime Minister David Cameron has indicated (yet again) that his Government aims to redefine the UK’s relationship with the EU. This could result in the UK withdrawing from the EU to rejoin the EFTA, a move often suggested and one which many consider to be unwise. As Euromove points out, “Although the EFTA-EEA states benefit from being part of the Single Market, their influence in Europe is marginal. With the majority of the former EFTA states now in the EU, and others considering joining, for the UK to leave the EU to rejoin EFTA would be a bizarre and retrograde step. Given that over half our trade is with other EU countries, why would we want to put ourselves in the position of having no control over the regulations governing our largest trading markets? We would be walking away from our ability to influence EU decisions. Our influence in the wider world would diminish and our economy would be further threatened by our being outside a powerful trading bloc capable of negotiating with the United States, Japan and China in the World Trade Organisation.” For exmaple, David Cameron recently called for a reduction in the EU Budget and lobbied hard for the resulting agreement which saw a ‘first-ever real terms cut’. European Leaders agreed on a 908bn euros (£768bn) budget limit for 2014 to 2020 - about 3% lower than the current seven-year period. The European Parliament still has to give its approval, but some would argue that being a prominent member of the EU affords the UK Prime Minister the privilege of being heard and taken seriously on the world stage, unlike Norway, whose Prime Minister reportedly quipped that “sarcastically described Norway as a “superpower in EFTA” (where it used to be a world leader on environmental issues and other topics now dominated by the EU). Despite all this, Mr. Cameron has promised UK voters an “In/Out” Referendum on EU membership should his party be re-elected in 2015 despite criticisms from within the UK and abroad including UK Euro MP Catherine Bearder (@catherinemep) who recently tweeted “ # EU budget. “’Good for Europe,Good for Britain’ Good for the Environment? I fear not. Council settle for 7 years of recession and cutbacks”.
Another particular interest for KPMG’s high-earning readers would be the Crown Dependencies of the United Kingdom aka The Channel Islands of Guernsey, Isle of Man and Jersey, also known for being Tax Havens. Channel Island inhabitants are full British Citizens. While none of the Islands is a member of the EU or OECD, all are British possessions and as such, not sovereign nations in their own right. The power to pass legislation rests with their own respective legislative assemblies, with the Assent of the Crown.
All three Islands are members of the British-Irish Council (BIC) and have their own agreements with the EU Parliament and OECD. They are increasingly under pressure to adjust government policies as a result, especially concerning taxation. It has been reported that Guernsey and Jersey are changing the way their tax systems work in order to remain OECD and EU compliant. For example, the UK decided to end VAT relief on Channel Islands goods in 2011 and this is no longer being contested by the Guernsey and Jersey Governments (and several private firms).
At least the UK and its Crown Dependencies don’t have to contend with the ongoing battles plaguing the Eurozone, whose EU member States gave up their sovereign currencies in favour of adopting the Euro currency in 1999. As the Wall Street Journal notes: “Antipathy to the Euro has risen strongly in European countries that didn’t join it. The currency crisis has strengthened the conviction of Britons, Swedes and Danes that they were right to keep their own currencies, the EU’s regular Eurobarometer surveys show. Experience suggests recovery from a financial crisis can be easier if a country devalues its currency, making its goods cheaper abroad. The only option for struggling Euro-zone countries, by contrast, is to push down wages and prices relative to the Euro’s core economies. The process will likely add years of hurt to regions of Europe already five years into a downturn.”
Notes:
EU: An economic and political union of 27 European member States.
EEA:European Union + three of the four member States of the European Free Trade Association - Iceland, Liechtenstein & Norway.
Eurozone:An economic and monetary union of 17 European Union member States.
BIC: The Sovereign govts of UK and Republic of Ireland; devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; Crown Dependencies of Guernsey, Isle of Man and Jersey.
EFTA: currently Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland. It has been suggested many times that the UK might leave the EU and rejoin EFTA.
The Workbook
There are 8 Dashboards in total, arranged in a Tabular format. Each is interactive in some form and links to a full datasheet and charts that can be manipulated. The workbook is 16 sheets in total. I had problems with getting numbers to format properly, especially the percentages.
Please note that the VAT datasheet truncated itself when I loaded it into the dashboard. It displays normally on the datasheet as intended for the sake of comparison, but you can also click into each country to see the full time series display via the dashboard itself..
http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/MOOCWeek4Proj_Tax/Dashboard1-Overview?:embed=y
My comment in reply to one set of feedback received:
Re the colour palette: Once I made the selection of the Purple Gradation for the interactive Map, my aim was to be consistent with the graphics that were drivien by the same KMPG Survey/OECD data. So I used Purple and a dew tints (aka “shades”) already available in Tableau. For the Disposable Income & VAT Graphs I again stuck to a specific Tableau palette of Blue & Tints and it was the same with Green & Tints for the Budget Graphs.
Actually, I should stay away from red and green as those are the most common forms of colour-blindness (and as someone who is disabled including visually impairment Accessibility is very important to me).
In addition to the subject matter, I set myself the challenge to get to grips with Tableau as much as I could. I worried about sketching something that might not be technically possible or that, in practice, wouldn’t make sense. The only way for me to know what was possible with this data was to just dive in and try different things out with the software. There is still a lot to learn but I’m hopeful that with more experience I will get better with the technical aspects of the interactivity. There may be solutions to the problems you highlighted that I’m just not aware of yet as a new user.
If I have time around this final project, I’ll tweak the dashboards and workbook and see if I can come up with something more “interesting” but not overwhelming.
Posted via email from Iconic Imagery