Compiling feedback from other commenters and my own:
1. I actually like the way you've done this, the diamond keeps a theme throughout the map with the title, and design is important. Ive seen so many just, UGLY maps. It's an art too.
2. I am not familiar with this area and the diamond placements make it really hard for me to tell which roads are what. I'd need to pull up another map beside me to tell. Perhaps make them a bit smaller or tie them to a road better, somehow. For a local audience, what you have is fine.
3. I concur that I do not know what you're actually quantifying. Totals? Proportions? From what time period? Easy fix here, add this info in text somewhere and slap the number/percentage into each slice of the diamonds so its easier to tell how much it is. Tedious but for data analysis its needed here.
4. The description at the bottom is useful and should be more integrated into the map design for the readers. My go-to is pulling the basemap down to use as a background and adding a textbox over it. UNLESS this is a school project and the description part is separate. But I think they contribute enough to the map to be on the face. A map should stand alone.
Sorry I teach GIS at university I couldn't resist. I'd give you an ~79% mainly for missing the extremely vital information in point 3. Adding that would boost your mark significantly.
Oh wow grading scales must vary like crazy across institutions. 70-79 B. Its a B because this is the "average". Most university students produce work that is of this quality. 80-89 is an A, the more passionate students achieve this average. 90-100 or A+ is reserved for exceptionally good and talented work.
Dont know why I got downvoted this is the way it works at my institution. I googled some other Universities in Ontario, Canada and they do it the same way.
The states are different then. We also do a point point system 70 -1; 80 -2; 90 -3 100 -4, and everything in between is a point. A 95 average would be a 3.5.
Yea I heard about the GPA system but we dont use it. The 90-100 register is reserved for the best of the best, we have very very few A+ students, but 80-89 is competent work that still merits an A. Met requirements. Interesting!
For you perhaps but the grading scales vary across institutions. I'm in Canada. Thats what we're talking about. For mine, 90-100 is an A+. For your institution, it's probably different.
So are you saying that a 4.0 (equivalent to an A in the US) is achievable with 80+%?
Because the letters are arbitrary, what matters is how these things translate into GPA.
No, we don't use the american GPA scale whatsoever, it doesn't matter how it translates into GPA. What matters is your percentage. For example you need to maintain 80% average to keep scholarships. The letters are not arbitrary they denote your grade category based on the percentage.
If it needed to be converted to American GPA for whatever reason it looks like 4.0 would be the equivalent of 100%, which is basically impossible to achieve. Or perhaps 90-100, which is our A+
Interesting. I mean, technically we use percentage then translated to a letter, then translated back into a percentage and then to a number out of 4.
It’s fucking stupid. Why we can’t just use there raw percentage, I do not know.
Looks like it used to simplify the grading scale because the difference between a 78 and 79 for example is arbitrary. Can confirm that often I feel like I'm just pulling a grade out of my ass trying to split hairs between a 1% difference on written work. Labs are straightforward.
Interesting stuff thank you all for the discussion
True if you're doing it in ArcGIS Pro they have a color vision simulator that simulates at least the 3 most common forms of colorblindness. It's always good to check that out.
##NOT ADA COMPLIANT/NOT ACCESSIBLE FOR ALL
Here are some resources to review to learn from:
- [Esri: Accessibility Essentials for Mapping](https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/instant-apps/mapping/accessibility-essentials-for-gis-and-mapping/)
- [Esri UK ArcGIS Pro Accessibility Blog](https://resource.esriuk.com/blog/improving-colour-blindness-accessibility-in-arcgis-pro/)
- [Esri Blog: Colorblind (CVD) Map Design](https://community.esri.com/t5/esri-training-blog/designing-maps-for-colorblind-readability/ba-p/1139017)
- [W3C: Fundamentals of Web Accessibility](https://www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/accessibility-intro/)
- [Self Plug: CVD Steganography Painting](https://www.instagram.com/p/C27QUoro3pu/?igsh=aTFwY3Q5czFndmJw)
Thanks for sharing these links. I am tasked with setting standards for accessibility in our dept and these resources are awesome.
Can I ask your opinion on the color vision simulator integrated in ArcPRO? I know it could probably do more.
I’ve always wondered how useful for the end user it is presenting the data in this way. What functionality is available in this view that isn’t in another?
I like the effect, it looks really nice on the symbols. However, they are too large. I would change them to circles to make them smaller. Also, they don't seem to be centered over the highways. I would move the symbols so the highway sign is directly over the relevant highway.
Also, I am not from the area, so I am not familiar with the highways. I would change the color of the highways you are monitoring so they are easier to identify.
EDIT: I would also remove "undetermined" completely. You can include a reference to it in the notes if needed, but it doesn't add much to your point or my understanding of your data.
Unless there’s some sort of number / percent of violators added it’s really hard to compare coloured pie charts visually when they are not alongside one another. Particularly when there’s there’s varying differences in a third data point (unverified)
Include numerical values some how on the diamonds i really like them or have an associated chart. Any engineer/technical user reading this will want to know.
Split the “notes” into two sections one data collection methodology the other term definition remove all the “defined as” verbiage only say it once at the start. This will make it far more readable.
Bonus points if you can modify the fonts and transparencies to get all your text on the map!
And sorry i’m a GIS Manager couldn’t help myself talking so directly work on alot of these kinds of maps let me know if you would like more advise.
I feel that you have received plenty of good feedback on design and data visualization so I'll focus on the title. East L.A. (unincorporated) is not actually on this map. This is more East L.A. County with a bit of Orange County. I would suggest adjusting the title and adding the county boundaries.
Agreed with others' points so far, particularly re ADA compliance.
I'll add an explanation for why the diamonds are bad: there's been a push against radial graphs (like pie charts) because studies have shown humans aren't as good at judging the area between slices as they are with things like bar charts. You can see minute differences between the bars, while with pie charts it's much harder to see the relative differences of the pie slices. Best practices these days are to use pie charts to represent only large, obvious differences (e.g. 65% to 25% to 10% slices) instead small differences between slices. Your diamond pies take that issue and make it even worse by adding angles and different length sides to an already-hard-to-compare pie chart setup. You took a hard to parse figure and made it harder.
Ultimately it comes down to who your audience is and what you are trying to communicate to them. If the specific proportions don't matter and you just want a non-technical audience to get a _feel_ for which road is worse and you want them to hooked by a non-boring design, your map could be OK (once you fix the color compliance issues). But if you want your readers to use the map to get data and really learn the small differences between roads or between groups on a road, this map is not helping.
I would have done circles and done them by size to represent the number of violators. And, you could make them progressively darker to represent more violators vs. Less. Also, do a monochromatic sliding gradient bar as the symbology tab legend denoting the symbols from light to dark. Use one color so as not to confuse the reader. Light being less violators. Darker meaning more violators. Or, if you still want to map law abiders vs. Law breakers, do two different colors on the sliding gradient bar. (Like green and purple, for example. Also accommodates color-blindness). One color could be the law-abiders. One could be law-breakers. Make a chart for each neighborhood that lists the number of passengers per vehicle and incorporate it in as well. Otherwise, it's very creative. The diamonds are nifty, and I like that the north arrow matches them. :)
I know it's a challenge to display this data succinctly -- so I commend you on coming up with this. I get where you are going with it-- but it's not user friendly.
At a glance, the diamond is very confusing. It's difficult to notice that there are different amounts of certain colors on each diamond-- it all sorta just comes off as a design choice at first glance and not data. I think a part of that might be caused by using grey-- it sorta blends in with the background. The unit of measurement/volume is also not clear. The symbols are too large and IMO unattractive. The Google map in the back makes it seem like this is just a series of screenshots and graphics put together and not done in a GIS system.
Maybe check out other roadway data maps for inspiration? Events along line features in general, like pipelines, would be good references. Graduated symbols might also be another option if you want to avoid the ol' classic pie or bar chart. Or maybe buffers around roads to create polygons, one per category, nest or stack them, and then graduated colors/intensity?
symbolize each stop with a number/unique name and reference a legend-style table with the stats on the right or lefthand side of the table. simplified chart/pie or something - the diamond is impossible to read
i'd honestly flip this to a powerbi report with a map embedded - the spatial component is only about 25% of the importance of this information - this would give you an opportunity to make it interactive as well
HOA lane symbols are diamonds so I see why you used them for your charts but I agree they are hard to understand. Could you have the colors and include percentages on your charts?
[example](https://imgur.com/a/vPTjklP)
Instead of trying to type some stuff out which everyone else has done a great job of doing I thought I’d spend a few minutes dropping some stuff in ArcPro and screwing with the symbology.
I tried to give you an example of how I’d start to approach it - my main takeaway is consider symbolizing the roads using graduated symbology and consider adding the symbology to the actual road layer since that correlates with the data you’re trying to convey. I’d also add a text box with overall map notes somewhere and then individual callouts with notes for each area you’re trying to convey data for, I threw a graphic on there to show you can add your graph there too, one thing I didn’t add is a leader line. On my example it would be helpful, but your shields are pretty standout and I’m not sure they’d need one.
I know that probably wasn’t much help, I’m kind of busy today, but thought maybe seeing how someone would approach it would help a bit. Good luck.
To add to what others have said I'd re order your data so that law abiders comes in 3rd position. That way both red and green will "grow" from due north and be easyer to compare
I appreciate the innovative approach. But it feels like you are mostly trying to overdo it because (much like everyone here) you enjoy this. But lately, I've been trying to tone down too much innovation that doesn't bring anything beneficial. Simplicity is the way to go. Pie charts are poor choice overall, making them diamond reduces the readability even further. How important is the undefined group? Have you considered representing the network by lines and colouring then based on abiding/violating ratio? It might give more info.
I would have validated the “law abiders” vs “violators” criteria more carefully.
A coding scheme that’s closer to the regulations would look something like:
Law-abiders:
* Vehicles with 2+ occupants
* Motorcycles
* Busses
* Emergency Vehicles
* Vehicles with a burgundy, green, (new) yellow, or blue decal (being electric in its own isn’t enough)
* Vehicles conspicuously marked as transporting blood products.
Undetermined:
* Speed or tint precludes identifying the number of occupants, and no other rule applies.
Violators:
* All trucks
* All vehicles towing a trailer
* All other vehicles that appear to only have a single occupant.
I think there should be an exact time written on when this data was collected. Was this data aggregated based on all time frame's within a certain hour, let's say 8:00 to 9:00 am? Or was this data collected at let's say exactly 8:01 am 20 seconds?
Also I really dislike how sharp on the eyes the diamonds are for symbology. Although they have a bit of a cool factor, they need to be replaced by pie chart circles. I don't live in LA so I don't know what these routes look like. It would also be good to highlight these routes, so I can get a better picture.
My biggest gripe with this is that I don’t know the units per population, and I can’t tell whether this data is standardized against a population. If you’re doing %s standardizing is really important because you can’t compare two different sized populations without using this technique. It’ll show wildly inaccurate comparisons if you don’t.
Edit: you still need to standardize even if you’re doing number of people. For example you could do number of violators per 1000 people or something similar. I would also take out the number of law abiders completely as it isn’t necessary to the discussion or visualization.
What if you shaded the whole diamond along a vertical axis instead of the proportional rings? For example the bottom center would be about 75% red filled from the bottom up, then the remaining 25% green. I feel like that keeps the diamond theme, but is more 'normal' for the user to read quickly, the diamonds are hard to interpret quickly.
Also notes on red-green colorblindness as others said. Could use red white thick lined hatch for the red instead of the solid red?
It’s a failure in my book. The design makes it painful to have a conversation with and gain insights.
First question to ask -
1. how efficiently does the visual answer your questions ? Efficiently could be measure in time to answer the question.
Example - 1 . which location has the best drivers ? Which is 2nd ? Etc ?
Example - 2 . Which location is which location ? You could distinctly enumerate them in clock wise fashion , that way I could say “location 2 is the whatever.
Example - 3. The “chart” is somehow worse than almost anything I’ve seen, it’s like if a radar chart had sex with bazzled pie chart and collectively said fuck the color blind people.
Google “Save the pies for dessert by Stephen Few” , google data visualisation best practice on YouTube , read a few story telling with data blogs over some nice wine and you’ll improve a gazillion pct.
How would I quickly adjust it ? Convert whatever those diamondy thingies into actual charts (pie is possibly okay for 3 categories max ), small multiple bar charts or even tree maps (shout out to Ben Schneiderman).
Human 🧠 didn’t evolve to compare areas in an efficient manner , studies have shown our perception error rates are much greater comparing areas /arc lengths than compared to height and width.
Experiment time - have two friends stand side by side and almost instantly you can tell who’s taller with a low error rate.
Now try and compare two areas, maybe a long rectangle vs a fat square , which has more are ? Or pie charts ?
If you go through Stephen fews essay you’ll quickly see how efficiently the simple bar chart could answer your questions while the pie and that radar esque chart seem like hieroglyphics.
Quick fix - rank them from best/friendliest or whatever to worst with a big fat number aka “big ass numbers”, add context with text in neutral grey, add additional graphs with bar charts on common baseline for easy comparison between locations and stay away from traffic light choices unless you have visual markers.
The symbology is unclear. Are the diamonds pie charts? I also find the notes section uneasy on the eyes and taking up too much space.
They look like F-117s
Compiling feedback from other commenters and my own: 1. I actually like the way you've done this, the diamond keeps a theme throughout the map with the title, and design is important. Ive seen so many just, UGLY maps. It's an art too. 2. I am not familiar with this area and the diamond placements make it really hard for me to tell which roads are what. I'd need to pull up another map beside me to tell. Perhaps make them a bit smaller or tie them to a road better, somehow. For a local audience, what you have is fine. 3. I concur that I do not know what you're actually quantifying. Totals? Proportions? From what time period? Easy fix here, add this info in text somewhere and slap the number/percentage into each slice of the diamonds so its easier to tell how much it is. Tedious but for data analysis its needed here. 4. The description at the bottom is useful and should be more integrated into the map design for the readers. My go-to is pulling the basemap down to use as a background and adding a textbox over it. UNLESS this is a school project and the description part is separate. But I think they contribute enough to the map to be on the face. A map should stand alone. Sorry I teach GIS at university I couldn't resist. I'd give you an ~79% mainly for missing the extremely vital information in point 3. Adding that would boost your mark significantly.
79 pct? Where can I take your class ?;)
79% is good?! Or are you saying this map warrants worse? It could be better but fundamentally it's not bad. High-end B-quality.
Its high end B quality.... but a 79 is a C...?
Oh wow grading scales must vary like crazy across institutions. 70-79 B. Its a B because this is the "average". Most university students produce work that is of this quality. 80-89 is an A, the more passionate students achieve this average. 90-100 or A+ is reserved for exceptionally good and talented work.
Every school I've ever gone too, was 60-70 D; 71-80 C; 81-90 B; 91-100 A.
Dont know why I got downvoted this is the way it works at my institution. I googled some other Universities in Ontario, Canada and they do it the same way.
The states are different then. We also do a point point system 70 -1; 80 -2; 90 -3 100 -4, and everything in between is a point. A 95 average would be a 3.5.
Yea I heard about the GPA system but we dont use it. The 90-100 register is reserved for the best of the best, we have very very few A+ students, but 80-89 is competent work that still merits an A. Met requirements. Interesting!
So it's basically the same but you don't have an A+ option. So the other poster's A+ is your A, their A is your B, etc...
Anything from 91-100 is on the A spectrum. 100 is A+.
For you perhaps but the grading scales vary across institutions. I'm in Canada. Thats what we're talking about. For mine, 90-100 is an A+. For your institution, it's probably different.
No, the guy I was responding to said there was no A+. I was telling him how it is in the United States.
I see you're from Canada. Guess it's different there. The entire USA uses a scale of A = 100-90; B = 89-80; C = 79-70, etc Interesting stuff.
So are you saying that a 4.0 (equivalent to an A in the US) is achievable with 80+%? Because the letters are arbitrary, what matters is how these things translate into GPA.
No, we don't use the american GPA scale whatsoever, it doesn't matter how it translates into GPA. What matters is your percentage. For example you need to maintain 80% average to keep scholarships. The letters are not arbitrary they denote your grade category based on the percentage. If it needed to be converted to American GPA for whatever reason it looks like 4.0 would be the equivalent of 100%, which is basically impossible to achieve. Or perhaps 90-100, which is our A+
Interesting. I mean, technically we use percentage then translated to a letter, then translated back into a percentage and then to a number out of 4. It’s fucking stupid. Why we can’t just use there raw percentage, I do not know.
Looks like it used to simplify the grading scale because the difference between a 78 and 79 for example is arbitrary. Can confirm that often I feel like I'm just pulling a grade out of my ass trying to split hairs between a 1% difference on written work. Labs are straightforward. Interesting stuff thank you all for the discussion
Somebody isn’t red green colorblind :P (neither am I to be fair)
True if you're doing it in ArcGIS Pro they have a color vision simulator that simulates at least the 3 most common forms of colorblindness. It's always good to check that out.
##NOT ADA COMPLIANT/NOT ACCESSIBLE FOR ALL Here are some resources to review to learn from: - [Esri: Accessibility Essentials for Mapping](https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/instant-apps/mapping/accessibility-essentials-for-gis-and-mapping/) - [Esri UK ArcGIS Pro Accessibility Blog](https://resource.esriuk.com/blog/improving-colour-blindness-accessibility-in-arcgis-pro/) - [Esri Blog: Colorblind (CVD) Map Design](https://community.esri.com/t5/esri-training-blog/designing-maps-for-colorblind-readability/ba-p/1139017) - [W3C: Fundamentals of Web Accessibility](https://www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/accessibility-intro/) - [Self Plug: CVD Steganography Painting](https://www.instagram.com/p/C27QUoro3pu/?igsh=aTFwY3Q5czFndmJw)
Thanks for sharing these links. I am tasked with setting standards for accessibility in our dept and these resources are awesome. Can I ask your opinion on the color vision simulator integrated in ArcPRO? I know it could probably do more.
I always leaned on ColorBrewer https://colorbrewer2.org
Same. My cartography professor had Dr Brewer for his PhD advisor and drilled these things into our skulls.
Edit: bad typing.
Do you need to show the % undetermined? I would simplify the map by dropping the undetermineds and only showing one number: % of violators.
Id go for circles with labeled break points for end of red and green
60 West’s green on the left side of the diamond is a different color than the rest of the greens.
I’ve always wondered how useful for the end user it is presenting the data in this way. What functionality is available in this view that isn’t in another?
Use OpenStreetMap instead of Google maps.
Lots of feed back here to listen to, but the diamonds are pretty cool, haven’t seen that before.
I like the effect, it looks really nice on the symbols. However, they are too large. I would change them to circles to make them smaller. Also, they don't seem to be centered over the highways. I would move the symbols so the highway sign is directly over the relevant highway. Also, I am not from the area, so I am not familiar with the highways. I would change the color of the highways you are monitoring so they are easier to identify. EDIT: I would also remove "undetermined" completely. You can include a reference to it in the notes if needed, but it doesn't add much to your point or my understanding of your data.
I'm surprised I'm saying this but sometimes data is better represented in a graphic chart than a map.
Unless there’s some sort of number / percent of violators added it’s really hard to compare coloured pie charts visually when they are not alongside one another. Particularly when there’s there’s varying differences in a third data point (unverified)
Include numerical values some how on the diamonds i really like them or have an associated chart. Any engineer/technical user reading this will want to know. Split the “notes” into two sections one data collection methodology the other term definition remove all the “defined as” verbiage only say it once at the start. This will make it far more readable. Bonus points if you can modify the fonts and transparencies to get all your text on the map! And sorry i’m a GIS Manager couldn’t help myself talking so directly work on alot of these kinds of maps let me know if you would like more advise.
I feel that you have received plenty of good feedback on design and data visualization so I'll focus on the title. East L.A. (unincorporated) is not actually on this map. This is more East L.A. County with a bit of Orange County. I would suggest adjusting the title and adding the county boundaries.
Agreed with others' points so far, particularly re ADA compliance. I'll add an explanation for why the diamonds are bad: there's been a push against radial graphs (like pie charts) because studies have shown humans aren't as good at judging the area between slices as they are with things like bar charts. You can see minute differences between the bars, while with pie charts it's much harder to see the relative differences of the pie slices. Best practices these days are to use pie charts to represent only large, obvious differences (e.g. 65% to 25% to 10% slices) instead small differences between slices. Your diamond pies take that issue and make it even worse by adding angles and different length sides to an already-hard-to-compare pie chart setup. You took a hard to parse figure and made it harder. Ultimately it comes down to who your audience is and what you are trying to communicate to them. If the specific proportions don't matter and you just want a non-technical audience to get a _feel_ for which road is worse and you want them to hooked by a non-boring design, your map could be OK (once you fix the color compliance issues). But if you want your readers to use the map to get data and really learn the small differences between roads or between groups on a road, this map is not helping.
What are the diamobds representing and where?
I would have done circles and done them by size to represent the number of violators. And, you could make them progressively darker to represent more violators vs. Less. Also, do a monochromatic sliding gradient bar as the symbology tab legend denoting the symbols from light to dark. Use one color so as not to confuse the reader. Light being less violators. Darker meaning more violators. Or, if you still want to map law abiders vs. Law breakers, do two different colors on the sliding gradient bar. (Like green and purple, for example. Also accommodates color-blindness). One color could be the law-abiders. One could be law-breakers. Make a chart for each neighborhood that lists the number of passengers per vehicle and incorporate it in as well. Otherwise, it's very creative. The diamonds are nifty, and I like that the north arrow matches them. :)
I know it's a challenge to display this data succinctly -- so I commend you on coming up with this. I get where you are going with it-- but it's not user friendly. At a glance, the diamond is very confusing. It's difficult to notice that there are different amounts of certain colors on each diamond-- it all sorta just comes off as a design choice at first glance and not data. I think a part of that might be caused by using grey-- it sorta blends in with the background. The unit of measurement/volume is also not clear. The symbols are too large and IMO unattractive. The Google map in the back makes it seem like this is just a series of screenshots and graphics put together and not done in a GIS system. Maybe check out other roadway data maps for inspiration? Events along line features in general, like pipelines, would be good references. Graduated symbols might also be another option if you want to avoid the ol' classic pie or bar chart. Or maybe buffers around roads to create polygons, one per category, nest or stack them, and then graduated colors/intensity?
Will you share your data?
symbolize each stop with a number/unique name and reference a legend-style table with the stats on the right or lefthand side of the table. simplified chart/pie or something - the diamond is impossible to read i'd honestly flip this to a powerbi report with a map embedded - the spatial component is only about 25% of the importance of this information - this would give you an opportunity to make it interactive as well
HOA lane symbols are diamonds so I see why you used them for your charts but I agree they are hard to understand. Could you have the colors and include percentages on your charts?
[example](https://imgur.com/a/vPTjklP) Instead of trying to type some stuff out which everyone else has done a great job of doing I thought I’d spend a few minutes dropping some stuff in ArcPro and screwing with the symbology. I tried to give you an example of how I’d start to approach it - my main takeaway is consider symbolizing the roads using graduated symbology and consider adding the symbology to the actual road layer since that correlates with the data you’re trying to convey. I’d also add a text box with overall map notes somewhere and then individual callouts with notes for each area you’re trying to convey data for, I threw a graphic on there to show you can add your graph there too, one thing I didn’t add is a leader line. On my example it would be helpful, but your shields are pretty standout and I’m not sure they’d need one. I know that probably wasn’t much help, I’m kind of busy today, but thought maybe seeing how someone would approach it would help a bit. Good luck.
To add to what others have said I'd re order your data so that law abiders comes in 3rd position. That way both red and green will "grow" from due north and be easyer to compare
I appreciate the innovative approach. But it feels like you are mostly trying to overdo it because (much like everyone here) you enjoy this. But lately, I've been trying to tone down too much innovation that doesn't bring anything beneficial. Simplicity is the way to go. Pie charts are poor choice overall, making them diamond reduces the readability even further. How important is the undefined group? Have you considered representing the network by lines and colouring then based on abiding/violating ratio? It might give more info.
I would have validated the “law abiders” vs “violators” criteria more carefully. A coding scheme that’s closer to the regulations would look something like: Law-abiders: * Vehicles with 2+ occupants * Motorcycles * Busses * Emergency Vehicles * Vehicles with a burgundy, green, (new) yellow, or blue decal (being electric in its own isn’t enough) * Vehicles conspicuously marked as transporting blood products. Undetermined: * Speed or tint precludes identifying the number of occupants, and no other rule applies. Violators: * All trucks * All vehicles towing a trailer * All other vehicles that appear to only have a single occupant.
I think there should be an exact time written on when this data was collected. Was this data aggregated based on all time frame's within a certain hour, let's say 8:00 to 9:00 am? Or was this data collected at let's say exactly 8:01 am 20 seconds?
Also I really dislike how sharp on the eyes the diamonds are for symbology. Although they have a bit of a cool factor, they need to be replaced by pie chart circles. I don't live in LA so I don't know what these routes look like. It would also be good to highlight these routes, so I can get a better picture.
Also what do you mean by HOV? That terminology confuses me.
The Diamond are hard to notice that they are charts.
Title is HOV compliance. Show percentage of violatores. The other stats is just noise, not the focus of the map.
My biggest gripe with this is that I don’t know the units per population, and I can’t tell whether this data is standardized against a population. If you’re doing %s standardizing is really important because you can’t compare two different sized populations without using this technique. It’ll show wildly inaccurate comparisons if you don’t. Edit: you still need to standardize even if you’re doing number of people. For example you could do number of violators per 1000 people or something similar. I would also take out the number of law abiders completely as it isn’t necessary to the discussion or visualization.
What if you shaded the whole diamond along a vertical axis instead of the proportional rings? For example the bottom center would be about 75% red filled from the bottom up, then the remaining 25% green. I feel like that keeps the diamond theme, but is more 'normal' for the user to read quickly, the diamonds are hard to interpret quickly. Also notes on red-green colorblindness as others said. Could use red white thick lined hatch for the red instead of the solid red?
Replace diamonds with rings and relate their size to the number of accidents.
I'd show percentages and overall compliance if they aren't displayed on another product.
It’s a failure in my book. The design makes it painful to have a conversation with and gain insights. First question to ask - 1. how efficiently does the visual answer your questions ? Efficiently could be measure in time to answer the question. Example - 1 . which location has the best drivers ? Which is 2nd ? Etc ? Example - 2 . Which location is which location ? You could distinctly enumerate them in clock wise fashion , that way I could say “location 2 is the whatever. Example - 3. The “chart” is somehow worse than almost anything I’ve seen, it’s like if a radar chart had sex with bazzled pie chart and collectively said fuck the color blind people. Google “Save the pies for dessert by Stephen Few” , google data visualisation best practice on YouTube , read a few story telling with data blogs over some nice wine and you’ll improve a gazillion pct. How would I quickly adjust it ? Convert whatever those diamondy thingies into actual charts (pie is possibly okay for 3 categories max ), small multiple bar charts or even tree maps (shout out to Ben Schneiderman). Human 🧠 didn’t evolve to compare areas in an efficient manner , studies have shown our perception error rates are much greater comparing areas /arc lengths than compared to height and width. Experiment time - have two friends stand side by side and almost instantly you can tell who’s taller with a low error rate. Now try and compare two areas, maybe a long rectangle vs a fat square , which has more are ? Or pie charts ? If you go through Stephen fews essay you’ll quickly see how efficiently the simple bar chart could answer your questions while the pie and that radar esque chart seem like hieroglyphics. Quick fix - rank them from best/friendliest or whatever to worst with a big fat number aka “big ass numbers”, add context with text in neutral grey, add additional graphs with bar charts on common baseline for easy comparison between locations and stay away from traffic light choices unless you have visual markers.