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| "Books Reaching #1 by Year" |
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| "The Rising Popularity of Mystery/Thrillers" |
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| "Who are the Authors and What are the Books?" |
The thing about this visualization is that, while the graph does a great job at giving the reader a gist of the information, the finer details of the data are a bit harder to find. A lot of this is due to the interactivity. Although the interactivity itself mostly works, it could have been used to better effect by giving the data a bit more clarity.
When it comes to the first graph, there are two main issues: the scrubber to the left, showcasing the book list for each year and month; and the seemingly random mentions of The Bridges of Madison County, The Da Vinci Code, and Fifty Shades of Grey.
When it comes to the first graph, there are two main issues: the scrubber to the left, showcasing the book list for each year and month; and the seemingly random mentions of The Bridges of Madison County, The Da Vinci Code, and Fifty Shades of Grey.
The problem with the scrubber is that it is difficult to use if you want to look at an exact year, and a drop-down menu and/or search field would have been much more user-friendly. In regards to the book titles on the graph, it turns out that they are the three books that held the #1 spot the longest for their respective years. This is difficult to discern at first, and it would have been helpful if a pop-up of some sort showed this information once you hovered over each title.
The biggest flaw with the second graph is that each chart stops at the year 2010, a full seven years early.
I feel that each chart could have been streamlined into one, with each genre having its own colour-coded line. I'm also a bit confused as to why "fiction" is its own category, when the other genres are also fiction.
The third graph, however, is fairly straightforward, showing the top ten authors and books, with interactive filters for genres and specific authors.
I work at Chapters-Indigo and my Mom is a published author so I always find bestseller lists and anything to do with the publishing industry very interesting. Seeing the data in a lay out like this and seeing more of the history behind the NYT bestsellers list(s) is fascinating. Knowing a bit about the NYT bestseller list and how it has changed with the industry, fiction can be separated out into many different categories and sub-genres. General fiction may be it's own category whereas specialized genres (mystery, romance, horror, etc.) have their own lists to balance out competition.
ReplyDeleteI think you did a good job of analyzing the visual aspects and brought up some important points on what could have been improved and what aspects worked. The screenshots and notations you made also make sense and help guide us through the post and original visualizations.
I am going to agree with the scrubber being difficult to use, and would feel a drop-down menu would have worked best. Good catch on the second graph, I wouldn’t have realized that. Also, I feel like the first chart is a bit all-over the place in presenting the data.
ReplyDeleteGood job in your analysis, nice that you did all three charts. You talked about good points about the charts, I agree that the second graph separating the fiction could change the numbers in the graph and also stopping in 2010 makes all the difference since the charts are complimentary.
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