Visualising aid information: how not to fail

(This post originally appears on the aidinfo website)

A question landed in my inbox yesterday and it got me thinking:

We want to make a very simple map showing the top destination of aid funds, regional donors and NGOs… I was wondering if you knew of any simple and free open-source tools that can allow this sort of mapping.

International Aid is Complicated

Visual displays of information can be eye-catching, easier to remember and a concise way of communicating a complex set of data.

Now, the international aid architecture cannot be described as simple. The diagram above, taken from “Trends and Issues in Development Aid“, clearly shows this.

The arrows in the picture represent a flow of moneyand a flow of information.  Aidinfo works to change the way this information is published, shared and used because doing so will make aid more effective.

With initiatives like IATI, data.worldbank.org andAidData paving the way for more detailed aid information that is open, timely, findable and usable, you could soon find yourself able to use information visualisation to communicate insights about the world of international development that just weren’t possible before.

If you get it right.

More data’s coming but poor visualisation would make it useless

Edward Tufte is credited with coining the term “Chartjunk” which refers to visual elements in charts or graphics that are not necessary to comprehend the information being represented. I use the term more liberally to describe examples of poor visualisation of information that defeat the purpose of visualising it in the first place: they make it harder to understand the message.

The use of statistics in international development is generally no better than in other fields – let’s think about how to do better.

Literacy in data and design

Owen blogged about a great set of guides on how to use and understand statistics from the British House of Commons library. Before attempting anything else, I’d make sure you’re comfortable with that material.

Following this by reading Edward Tufte or Stephen Few will certainly put you on the right track, but for something a bit quicker, I’d recommend this short video of an ignite talk by self-confessed information visualisation enthusiast Matthias Shapiro. When designing a visualisation he suggests:

1. Ask a specific question
2. Gather your information
3. Apply a metric

Without a clear question in mind, the chance of producing something pointless greatly increases. Once you’ve got a question, focus on gathering only the information that’s relevant. Finally, take a piece of that data and apply it to an appropriate visual dimension (e.g. bigger numbers represented by larger circles)  Above all, tell a story. These seem to be key ingredients to a good visualisation.

Putting it into practice…?

So with that in mind, how did I reply to the initial question in my inbox?

The good thing about blogging is that you can say what you wish you’d thought of in the first place take a little time to reflect on an idea and then open it up to readers to see what they think. The questioner was looking for a tool that would let them map some aid information and I recommended looking at the Exhibit Framework which is part of the SIMILE project at MIT.

For a bit of fun I thought I’d use Exhibit to see what I could do in 60 minutes to show how much aid the ten largest country donors give annually. Click here or on the image to the right to get to the actual visualisation.

In short, it’s not bad but not particularly good either.

I wanted to show the relative size of overseas development assistance coming from the top 10 countries both on a map and in a table. In many ways, this information is better communicated using a bar chart but for the purposes of making a point, this map’s useful.

Some other thoughts:

• The map might give the false sense that the US gives as much as Europe combined – check the table to see that this is definitely not true.
• In the tables, the % of 2009 GNI figure is in many ways more interesting: 0.2% for the USA looks huge but 1.12% for Sweden looks tiny. The map doesn’t reflect this.
• Using billions instead of millions would improve readability.
• Comparing circle areas is harder than comparing bar heights.
• Adding more information in Europe would make the map too crowded at this zoom level.

Part of the problem was my lack of familiarity with Exhibit and the 60 minute time limit, but I think there are also elements of the tool that make it easy to forget or hard to apply good design principles.

I wanted to see what was possible for the non-expert to produce – I assume the original questioner doesn’t have a background in programming or graphic design but still wants to visually communicate a message. There are technology and design organisations doing excellent visualisation work for international development clients, but there are many cases where presenting data would make a huge difference, but the resources to bring someone in just aren’t there.

You can download the source data (taken from OECD via this blog) and all the Exhibit files to try it yourself.

Opportunities and Pitfalls

It’s great that we’re getting more data on international development along with free tools that can help visualise it.

However, after 60 minutes trying this out I’d say:

• Begin with basic data and design literacy and then worry about fancy stuff.
• Be aware of the limitations and constraints of the tools you’re using – some make it easy to ignore good design principles.
• Remember that there may well be better tools for the job - Maslow’s hammer isn’t just for hammers.

What tools and techniques and resources have you been using to visualise aid information recently?