Critique By Design - Drug Harms in Great Britain, 2010

Hello! For my data visualization redesign, I chose to explore a graph from the Economist.

Step one: the visualization

Link: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/06/25/what-is-the-most-dangerous-drug

I chose this visualization because I think the topic is still incredibly important: although this was published in 2010, I think that drug abuse and its effects not only on the user, but the community at large, should be highlighted. Additionally, I think it is striking that the data collection included alcohol in their study. All too often, I think that people neglect the fact that alcohol abuse is still damaging, and it is normalized throughout many countries and generations to abuse alcohol. Other motivations for choosing this data involve the reputable standing of the Economist, and my emerging interests in public health and tactics related to public information campaigns regarding diseases and afflictions.

Step two: the critique

Overall, the visualization does a good job at transmitting the idea that alcohol, heroin, and crack cocaine are among the most harmful drugs in the UK. The colors are not necessarily drawing “alertness” because of the cool-tones used, but the author does a good job at differentiating the harm to users and harm to others by choosing colors that are distinct enough from each other. I think they could have used other colors, though, to translate the “alertness”. Additionally, I am not convinced that that stacked bars are a good way to communicate the message: does the “harm to others” section start where the “harm to self” bars end? Are they included in the part-of-a-whole?

Also, I’m not sure that the title “paying through the nose” is informative, and I’m slightly surprised that the Economist published a graphic that seemingly includes a tongue-and-cheek joke at something that should be perceived as serious or important, if the Economist wishes to take a neutral standing on drug use, which is not inherently a bad thing.

Step three: Sketch a solution

I made two sketches, because I could not decide which one I liked more!

My initial sketch of the data:

In Britain: Alcohol, Heroin, and Crack Cocaine Deemed Most Harmful Among Users & Community

Second Sketch:

Step four: Test the solution

Questions that I asked:

Which data visualization is the most understandable?
Is there anything you find surprising or confusing?
Is there anything you would change or do differently?

Results: Participant 001: Student - Health Care Analytics - 26 yrs Participant 002: Student - Public Policy and Management, DA - 24 yrs Participant 003: Student - Entertainment Industry Management - 24 yrs

P001	P002	P003
Prefer the second visualization	Prefer the second visualization	Prefer the second visualization
Should try to bold more aspects for readability	Should change the color scheme from blue and red to just red	Use dark red. Otherwise, gray is fine.
Fill the circle!	Title is very informative. Maybe you can edit the axes to be more concise, too	Explore opaqueness for the users/others to differentiate.
Try to shift the drug lables for readability.	Try to rotate the graph, as the drug labels are slightly difficult to read.	Maybe you could merge the users/others groups to have a more immediate comparison.

Synthesis:

After feedback, I knew that I was on the right track, but I needed to simplify a bit more! I’m in agreement with my groupmates that the second sketch is more enlightening, and I wanted to incorporate some of these design edits. Tableau is a little tricky for me to use, but I definitely want to make the colors a unified dark red/gray scheme, and I want to “pull apart” the data by using the comparisons. Also, I’m happy that they agree that the original title was less than helpful, and that the circles look more put together than the stacked bars.

Step five: build the solution

Final Sketch:

In Britain: Alcohol, Heroin, and Crack Cocaine Deemed Most Harmful Among Users & Others, 2010

For my final sketch, I chose to move in the direction of the second sketch, which “expanded out” the graph on harm to users and harm to others. I also chose to incorporate the total harm score, since I think it’s useful to still have the overall comparison. I also agreed with my groupmembers regarding the coloring and switching from horizontal to vertical: I think the graph is far more understandable with only dark red highlighting the most harmful drugs, aiding in the “story” I tell in the title. Additionally, I tweaked the axes label for readability’s sake: before, it was too long and added information– like selected drugs– that was redundant. To clean this up, I simply included only the missing, relevant information. For the title, I included the year “2010” so that readers can have context immediately and not have to dig for the information in an axes label. I also chose to bold and increase the text size of the title.

Regretfully, I could not figure out how to manipulate the database structure to allow for the “layering” effect that we used in class earlier today. To do that, I would have had to separate the “harm to users” and “harm to others” to merge into one chart, which I could not split in Tableau. In the future, I want to attempt this layer effect to use for more direct, inherent comparisons.

References

No references.

AI acknowledgements

No AI used.

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