For my new data visualization class I thought I'd share my experience creating charts based off data sets, using Tableau. Representing two related sets of data revolving around geography was tricky because you need to distinguish them from one another on Tableau, using features like size, color, etc. Using this data set provided, it included information about non-citizens apprehended, versus non-citizens who are inadmissible.
This was close to my starting point, after the choice was made to put the information on a map. I began with multicolored dots indicating which countries we were referencing, and the larger the dot, the more inadmissible non-citizens were involved, whereas the different colors stood for different numbers correlating to non-citizens apprehended. The problem with my colors initially, is that you absolutely needed the legend to identify the amount apprehended.
The next change I wanted to make was to highlight the whole country, because I thought the dots were less clear, but in doing so it only provides one set of data. If I wanted to represent the apprehended in addition to inadmissible, I would simply change it back to the dotted representation, in which the size of the dot indicated the amount.
I also wanted to change the colors to something you can infer information from without needing a key. This illustrates how the lighter colored countries have less inadmissables, whereas the darker countries have more.
In playing around with this software, a few questions came to mind:
How can represent two types of data into one map?
How can this make the best visual impact AND represent the data properly?
Why is a map better than a bar or line chart?
I hope my data visualization class helps me figure these ones out, and this is part one of many!
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