data visualization exercise

Data Visualization Exercises Due: Wednesday Oct. 17 at 3pm Submit your assignment as a pdf file via the compass course space.

Exercise 1 The following tree map provides information about land area and population density for states in regions of the United States of America.

For this visualization do the following:

• Consider the Dos and Don’ts of good data visualization discussed in class. Comment on at least 3 ways in which this visualization should be improved to make the information displayed more informative and understandable.

• Comment on the fundamental comparisons being made in this plot. What questions of interest can be easily answered with this plot?

• Summarize the key takeaways from the graphic. What can we say about population and land distribution across and within regions of the USA based on this visualization?

Exercise 2 The following is a chord diagram illustrating migration patterns across regions of the United States. In the diagram, each region has its own axis, and chords represent migration from one region to another. The color of the chord is for the region individuals migrated from, and there is a small white strip on the starting side of the chord.

For this visualization do the following:

• Consider the Dos and Don’ts of good data visualization discussed in class. Comment on at least 3 ways in which this visualization should be improved to make the information displayed more informative and understandable.

• Comment on how the 5 Basic Tactics discussed in class (size, position, shape, color, and connectedness) are used in this visualization. Note: It is possible that not all 5 are used.

• Summarize the key takeaways from the graphic. What can we say about population migration across and within the specified regions of the USA based on this visualization?

Exercises 3 and 4 Using software of your choice, create the graphics described from the data in the MigrationData.csv file attached to this assignment. This is the region to region migration data from the chord diagram in Exercise 2. The data is based on the State-to-State Migration Flows: 2015 data set from the United States Census Bureaui. In MigrationData.csv, the rows are the regions of origin (the region migrants started out in) and the columns are the destination regions (where they moved to). Be sure to use tactics discussed in class to clearly establish what data is being compared and to make the desired comparison as clear as possible.

Exercise 3 The chord diagram is very complete, but a similar diagram may be useful for comparing proportions for a given region and making a simple comparison of proportions across regions. Create a graphic or set of graphics that allows for easy comparison of absolute number of migrants to each region for each of the four region.

Exercise 4 Create a graphic that allows for easy comparison of the ratio of immigrants (those moving into a region from a different region) to emigrants (those moving out of the region) for the 4 regions. For this graphic we are focused on exits from and entrances into regions, so migration counts within region (i.e. same origin and destination value) will be omitted entirely.

i The original data is available through the State-to-State Migration Flows: 2015 link as State_to_State_Migrations_Table_2015.xls on https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/geographic- mobility/state-to-state-migration.html