Distribution of power plants across Western Europe

Visual Design
#1

This is a symbol map I have created as part of my University assignment in Data Visualisation, based off a Power Plant dataset linked below. I created a heat-map to show the distribution and possible crowding of power plants within Western Europe:

Screenshot 2020-02-20 at 20.58.21
Screenshot 2020-02-20 at 20.58.211712×1178 220 KB

Guideline:
Visual Design Type: Symbol Map (with density marking)
Name of Tool: Tableau
Country: Western Europe
Year: 2019
Visual Mappings:
X-Axis: AVG(longitude)
Y-Axis: AVG(latitude)
Detail: Power Plant ID (gppd_idnr)
Colour: N/A
Labels: N/A
Unique Observation: It’s observed that the Southern part of the UK leads in possessing the largest density population of power plants. This is closely followed by parts of France and Spain.

Source: http://datasets.wri.org/dataset/globalpowerplantdatabase

Question:

  • Are the colours suitable enough and clear to understand?
  • The density is so high in the UK that it covers most of the country. Would this be a problem, and should the opacity be lowered further?
  • Is there any possible improvements I could make to better aid in understanding the data better?

Thank you!

#2

Nice focus on one particular area, this makes it visually aesthetic however the colour causes an issue where some area’s are a blur of yellow. A different visualisation type such as packed bubbles may make it easier to understand the distribution across Western Europe.