Visualising Tuberculosis across the USA - Bubble Chart or Choropleth?

Visual Design
#1

Hi,

I am a Computer Science Masters student currently studying Data Visualisation. As part of my coursework I am exploring and visualising the Project Tycho data. I’m looking at the cases of TB across the USA from 1981 to 2014.

I have included a second image in the comments as new users may only post one picture

image

Visual Design Type: Choropleth and Bubble Chart

Name of Tool: Tableau

Country: United States of America

Disease(s): Tuberculosis

Year: 1891 to 2014

Visual Mappings:

  • Colour: Shows the number of fatalities.
  • Shape: Circles - size of which indicates number of cases.

References:

Unique Observation:

It can be seen on the Choropleth that the East Coast of the USA seems to have a slightly higher number of TB cases.

Data Preparation: Cumulative data had to be removed from the data set to prevent counting the same results twice.

DOI: 10.25337/T7/ptycho.v2.0/US.56717001

My Question: Is there a better way to visualise this data?
I feel that the choropleth type visualisation is sub-optimal, it could be better. I really like the bubble chart visualisation, however it lacks clarity in the states with smaller overall count for cases due to the fact that there isn’t space to label them. It also lacks the slight trend of Eastern states having a greater number of cases.
Any advice would be appreciated.

Many thanks,

Alex

#2

image

Here is the bubble chart that was created.

#3

Hello,

Excellent question. I feel that the bubble chart visualisation gives a clearer picture of the differences in the data and helps with infering observations from the data. It certainly gives a more explicit representation of the differences between cases and fatalities. One thing you may consider, so you wish, is that the colours could be improved to show the differences in the less ambiguous manner. Personally, I think the blue to red spectrum could be confusing for any end users of this data.

Hope this Helps.