With 2008 US Presidential elections around the corner everyone is busy including chart makers. There are hundreds of excellent visualizations on the presidential election campaign, speeches, issues, predictions that keeping track of what is best can be a tough task. We at PHD have compiled a list of 35 totally awesome visualizations on the 2008 election. Do check these to get more insights in to this election.
The visualizations are grouped in to these categories:
- Campaigns & Speeches
- Projections
- Primaries & Caucuses
- Other Politics
- Trivia & Fun Facts
Like this list? Browse other cool visualizations here.
Visualizations on Campaigns & Speeches
Article References to Obama & McCain
How many articles are referring to Obama and McCain
Donations Made to Political Candidates
Donations received by each candidate. The blue semi-circles in the center describe the size of the overall donations by both Obama and McCain. The lines indicate the amount of donation made.
Anatomy of Speech – Barack Obama’s Acceptance Speech at DNC
Presentation Zen takes a look at Obama’s acceptance speech at DNC and compares it with a symphony.
Wordtree – Obama Speaks at DNC
Obama’s speech, the word “WE” in a word tree.
Sarah Palin in VP Debates – Wordle Tag Cloud
Look at what Palin spoke in the VP debates recently, in a word cloud. More Wordle clouds : McCain, Obama @ DNC, Obama vs. King – the speeches I have a Dream vs. More Perfect Union
Marginal Taxes – Obama vs. McCain
How each candidates taxation policies effects the marginal taxes.
Break up of campaign finance information by NY Times.
How the tax plans of Obama and McCain are going to impact you?
Campaign finances information visualization by BBC
This info-graphic shows which candidate is spending how much in each state in advertising. Looks like Obama beat McCain hands down in most states as far as ad spending is concerned.
Candidate Visits to Each State
This visualization by CNN shows us how many times each candidate has visited each of the 50 states since the campaign has began. You can see that swing states have attracted unusually large amounts visits compared pre-decided states.
Issues and Agendas, What is their Stance?
This stacked chart shows how much each candidate has given preference to the various issues like health care, taxation etc.
Visualizations on 2008 US Presidential Elections – Projections & Polls
Vote Prediction Tracker – US Electoral College
Intrade – 2008 Electoral Projections
Pollster – View & Analyze Polls
Perspctv – another Election Tracking Site
Presidential Watch – what various websites are saying
The Economist’s pole – Economists prefer Obama over McCain
Google Maps Projections Tracker
Primaries & Caucuses
Who names who – Debates leading to Iowa Caucuses
This interactive visualization takes a look at the speeches made during primaries and caucuses and tells us who is naming who.
How they voted in primaries ? – Clinton vs. Obama
This brilliant visualization provides very good analysis of how people voted in democratic primaries.
Visualizations on Trivia & Fun Facts
The Measure of a President – NY Times
The height and weight of presidential candidates since the 1896.
Obama vs. McCain – Google Search Insights
Who is searched more? Obama or McCain, now you can find it with Google Search Insights
Compare Political Quotes – Google Labs
Compare quotations made by candidates on various issues.
Red vs. Blue – Popularity of Books – Amazon
Amazon plots their book sales data to show which states are reading what wrt. political orientation.
This interactive chart shows the life of each president and when he became the White house inhabitant. A fun way to look at who got the opportunity very early and who waited long.
Amazon Halloween Mask Sales – Obama vs. McCain
Can Halloween mask sales predict who is going to be next president. Amazon has built a meter for us to track who is selling more masks – Obama or McCain. Looks like Obama is leading here.
Want to findout more about party head quarters in each city / state? This google maps application is perfect for trivia mongers.
Visualizations on Other Politics
who voted No to the $ 700 Bn Bailout Plan
The NY Times interactive graphic tells the story behind the initial NO vote for the $ 700 Bn bailout package.
How republican and democratic senators voted in 2007
Another look at how both republicans and democrats voted in 2007, you can see why McCain calls him self a maverick. He is the only one not connected to the republican network.
National Debt by Political Party
This graph shows US National Debt by in years since 1975. The bars are colored based on the ruling political party at that time.
Bonus Visualizations – For Fun
Palinworld – New Yorker coverpage
A humorous take by New Yorker on how Palin Sees the world form her home
What your vote helps determine – PHD Comics
PHD Comics takes a look at the irony of what each vote determines.
So which one(s) do you like better?
14 Responses to “Group Smaller Slices in Pie Charts to Improve Readability”
I think the virtue of pie charts is precisely that they are difficult to decode. In many contexts, you have to release information but you don't want the relationship between values to jump at your reader. That's when pie charts are most useful.
[...] link Leave a Reply [...]
Chandoo,
millions of ants cannot be mistaken.....There should be a reason why everybody continues using Pie charts, despite what gurus like you or Jon and others say.
one reason could be because we are just used to, so that's what we need to change, the "comfort zone"...
i absolutely agree, since I've been "converted", I just find out that bar charts are clearer, and nicer to the view...
Regards,
Martin
[...] says we can Group Smaller Slices in Pie Charts to Improve Readability. Such a pie has too many labels to fit into a tight space, so you need ro move the labels around [...]
Chandoo -
You ask "Can I use an alternative to pie chart?"
I answer in You Say “Pie”, I Say “Bar”.
This visualization was created because it was easy to print before computers. In this day and age, it should not exist.
I think the 100% Bar Chart is just as useless/unreadable as Pies - we should rename them something like Mama's Strudel Charts - how big a slice would you like, Dear?
My money's with Jon on this topic.
The primary function of any pie chart with more than 2 or 3 data points is to obfuscate. But maybe that is the main purpose, as @Jerome suggests...
@Jerome.. Good point. Also sometimes, there is just no relationship at all.
@Martin... Organized religion is finding it tough to get converts even after 2000+ years of struggle. Jon, Stephen, countless others (and me) are a small army, it would take atleast 5000 more years before pie charts vanish... patience and good to have you here 🙂
@Jon .. very well done sir, very well done.
good points every one...
I've got to throw my vote into Jon's camp (which is also Stephen Few's camp) -- bars just tend to work better. One observation about when we say "what people are used to." There are two distinct groups here (depending on the situation, a person can fall in either one): the person who *creates* the chart and the person who *consumes* the chart. Granted, the consumers are "used to" pie charts. But, it's not like a bar chart is something they would struggle to understand or that would require explanation (like sparklines and bullet graphs). Chart consumers are "used to" consuming whatever is put in front of them. Chart creators, on the other hand, may be "used to" creating pie charts, but that isn't an excuse for them to continue to do so -- many people are used to driving without a seatbelt, leaving lights on in their house needlessly, and forwarding not-all-that-funny anecdotes via email. That doesn't mean the practice shouldn't be discouraged!
[...] example that Chandoo used recently is counting uses of words. Clearly, there are other meanings of “bar” (take bar mitzvah or bar none, for [...]
[…] Grouping smaller slices in pie chart […]
Good article. Is it possible to do that with line charts?
Hi,
Is this available in excel 2013?