OECD data visualization
30 Oct 2019Part one
Part two
The beeswarm plot
Description: The beeswarm plot visualizes the debt-to-GDP ratio in each country from 1995 to 2018. The size of the circle can indicate the value of the debt-to-GDP. For example, Japan got the biggest circle in the graph, which can indicate that Japan had the highest debt-to-GDP ratio. The y-axis shows the country’s abbreviation name and the x-axis represents the year.
Debt-to-GDP ratio (%), 1995-2018
The circle packing graph
Description: The circle packing graph shows hierarchical circles based on the location and the time. The bigger the circle is, the larger the value is, which means the debt-to-GDP ratio of the country is higher. In my data visualization, I want to show this graph to the audience in Japan. Thus, to focus on Japan, I made other countries into grey circles and emphazied Japan with red color. I chose red color since the visualization is about government deficits. Deficits are always represented in red. The circle packing graph can visualize the hierarchy and the size of the data, which can make it clear for audience to see the difference.
Debt-to-GDP ratio in Japan (%), 1995-2017
Summary
In general, the beeswarm plot could clearly show the size of the value by representing values with circles. However, from my point of view, the beeswarm plot might be a little bit dizzy. There were too many big and small black circles next to each other. Besides, if I want to compare the value among countries, it might be difficult to tell the differences between circles. In the second visualization approach, I wanted to compare the data of Japan to the data of other countries. And I also wanted to see the hierarchy in the values. Thus, I chose the circle packing graph to show the data. The bigger circles showed the overall values in each location, and the smaller circles showed the values in each year. Compared to the beeswarm plot, the circle packing graph seemed to be more efficient if I want to see the differences in total values among countries. The beeswarm plot would be better if I want to see the difference among years. Also, the beeswarm plot couldn’t show the hierarchy of values, while the circle packing graph could.
From the graph, the size of JPN’s circle was relatively larger, which indicated that JPN had a higher debt-to-GDP ratio. The debt-to-GDP ratio showed the influence of the government deficits. In this case, we could conclude that the influence of government deficits in Japan was large. Looking inside the JPN’s circle, I found that the larger circles were labeled as recent years, which meant the influence was getting larger.
Source: OECD (2019), General government debt (indicator). doi: 10.1787/a0528cc2-en (Accessed on 01 November 2019)