Packed bubbles visualisation

Visual Design
#1

Hi guys, I’m a Swansea University student looking for some feedback on one of my visualisations of a global power plant database. I appreciate any time taken to review the visualisation and leave any feedback possible if necessary.
Here’s the source of the data: http://datasets.wri.org/dataset/globalpowerplantdatabase

Image:
image

Visual Design Type: Packed Bubbles

Name of Tool: Tableau

Country: N/A

Year: N/A

Visual Mappings:
Detail - AVG(estimated_generation_gwh)
Label – primary_fuel
Label – CNT(primary_fuel)
Colour – primary_fuel

Unique Observations:
Average estimated energy generation per primary fuel type.
Number of power plants of each primary fuel type throughout the world (within the database).
Energy generation differences dependent on fuel type.
Visualises the importance specific power plants being built depending on population density of regions. (One nuclear power plant would be more suitable to power a city like London in comparison to one wind power plant).

Data Preparation: Filters used in Tableau to retrieve new values, no modifications made to the original dataset.

Questions:

  1. Does the visualisation make sense?
  2. Have I selected an appropriate visualisation? If not, can you specify where to improve?
  3. What do you take away from the visualisation produced?

Thank you in advance for the help!

#2

mostly yes, however the number on each bubble is slightly confusing as bigger bubbles do not necessarily have larger numbers which can be difficult to understand without it being explained what the number means. Maybe add to the label to specifically state that this is the number of power plants of that type.

I believe that the chosen type of visualisation is effective at showing the amount of power generated from each source. Some of the power sources that have similar amounts of average power generates are hard to distinguish from one another, namely; oil, hydro and geothermal.

I am easily able to see that the average nuclear power plant generates the most power, the visualisation makes it fairly clear to the user.

#3

@TheLootist Thank you for your response, I’ve noted the feedback and I’ve made the appropriate changes that you’ve suggested. Although I agree that some are hard to distinguish from another, however this is also done on purpose to emphasise that renewable sources can be just as useful as non-renewable sources whilst also being greener to the planet. Many thanks for the helpful reply!