Improving on a graphic in a news article

1. Problem Statement

We see ever more graphics around us – in newspapers, online, and social media.  These inevitably range in quality – most of them are very good, but occasionally we see examples which obfuscate rather than illuminate.  On the positive side these present an opportunity to think about how they can be improved, and as a case study, actually to show what the improvement(s) might be. 

The offending graphic in this case is the one towards the end of the following online article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/04/post-brexit-election-boris-johnson-polls-jeremy-corbyn

This is one such example – we take the original graphic, replicate it, then iteratively improve it.

2. Suggested Approach

Critiquing an existing graphic is essentially similar to creating a new one.  Start off by asking what the purpose of it is – what is the key message which the author is seeking to convey?  In this case the answer is clearly given above the graphic – “How Brexit would suit Boris Johnson”.  In this case there is probably no need to ask whether this is the right message – the key question is given that that is the message, how well does the graphic convey it, and how could it be better conveyed?

Here is the original graphic:

Why is it bad?

• The main issue is that the bars add up three things that are mutually exclusive - they are results from three different polls. So total Conservative support from three different polls add up to well over 60%, Labour to just over 60%, etc. This is meaningless.  The core message, about the impact of Brexit on the respective shares of the parties, requires comparison between the three polls, which is nearly impossible if they are stacked in this way.
• The colour scheme is unhelpful – the use of red and two shades of grey.  Given that red is associated already with the Labour Party, using it in a different way on a chart which includes Labour is confusing.  It might only take a second or two for the reader to figure this out, but those seconds are an unnecessary waste.

It’s also worth recognising the good aspects of the graphic, however:

• Good use of title and subtitle – it is good practice to give the key conclusion/message in the title or the subtitle of a chart – it is clearly stated here (“How Brexit would suit Boris Johnson”), along with the description of what the numbers actually represent, ie “Respondents were asked:…”.
• Good placement of the legend – knowing what the three different polls/scenarios are is core to understand this data, so placing them above the chart is helpful.
• Using a bar chart rather than a column chart – this enables the data labels (ie party names) to be shown horizontally and hence be more legible than on a column chart.

3. Rationale and Commentary

This section runs through the iterations of the chart, each one trying to improve it.  To put things in context, these iterations took about 15 minutes – ie it wasn’t a time consuming exercise.

1. Original Guardian presentation 

This is the same presentation replicated in Excel:

1. Iteration 1 - unstack the bars 

This at least enables the three different polls/scenarios to be more easily compared, as they all now start at 0% on the same axis.  However the number of bars, and the colour scheme, still get in the way of interpreting it.

1. Iteration 2 - flip rows/columns and recolour the segments 

 Stacking the bars in the other way is a fairly obvious way of reconfiguring the data, given that the results of each poll add up to 100%.  The three polls/scenarios read logically down the left hand axis.  And using the colours associated with each political party makes the presentation more intuitive. 

Returning to the core message of the graphic, the impact on the Conservative share of support in the third scenario is much clearer.

1. Iteration 3 - flip rows/columns, recolour the segments, and reorder the parties:

As a final improvement to emphasise the core message, shifting the Brexit party segments to be next to the Conservative segments shows that the increase in the latter seems to be a direct result of the decrease in the former, with the shares of the other parties staying roughly the same (which is clearer because their segments now line up).

4. Applicability and Alternatives

There may well be further iterations and alternative presentations which get the message across better, and which bring out other messages altogether – this was intentionally a “quick and dirty” exercise to show what can be done in a short period of time, so broader alternatives weren’t considered.

5. Implementation

The original graphic was replicated in Excel, which was then used to create the iterative improvements (the original spreadsheet is available on request). Excel 2016 was used for the creation of both charts, however the column/bar charts will work in any version of Excel.

6. Context

It is often quick, easy and instructive to critique graphics/visualisations which you come across in any sphere of life, and can be even more useful if you take a short amount of time to make improvements to it, if you feel that the original doesn’t convey its central message very effectively.