This viz has been getting some press lately. It takes a look
at tweets by country during the course of the Euro2012 tournament. Aesthetically
it is pretty cool and I like the interactivity but from an information
perspective there are some shortcomings.
The primary message the steam graph is communicating is that
on the 23rd, 27th and 30th there were a lot of
tweets and that dipped on 20th, 25th, 26th, 29th
and 30th. Presumably, the reason for the surge was the importance of
the games while the dip could have been caused by the fact that no games were
played. What is much less clearly communicated, and seems to be the intended
goal of the viz, is which countries tweeted the most, when, and why. The reader
has to interpret the size of the area to understand the number of tweets for
each day. It is also not very clear where the points originate from. It would be more informative if this were a line chart on the same
axis originating from zero. A user could click the country and it would highlight the line for that
nation.
The smaller area charts below the steam graph break out the
countries not by day but during the course of the game. Each chart indicates
when a goal was scored which usually correspond to spikes in tweets. These
charts are much more informative and contextualized. The animation as you move
between games is nice and smooth. It would probably make more sense to have
these be spark line charts on the same axis so you can compare the two
countries during the course of the game. Another thing that is missing is a horizontal axis label for
the match time. For example, during the England-Italy match there is a spike at
the end of the game. Is this spike during the penalty kicks or the end of regulation? A
simple axes label would provide even more context.
Overall there are elements of this viz that are really
impressive. The animation is really polished and it looks pretty cool. But from
the perspective of communicating information I imagine Stephen Few would be
none too pleased.
