Good Afternoon,

This week, I redesigned a visualization (seen above) for this week’s Makeover Monday.

1. Firstly, I was tasked to evaluate the visual as provided by Makeover Monday. I believe the original visual was helpful only to the extent of understanding how the Reykjavik Index was scored. Using the circle chart, you could infer that the score of each country was out of 100, and using a different color, they were able to highlight the G7 average of the 7 countries. I think the best use of this particular visualization was that they showed how each of these countries is pursuing equality of the perception of women in leadership roles, and how none of the countries have completed the circle. So, I do think that the original visual demonstrated at a high-level the issues that it wanted to illustrate, but it didn’t have the best format for picking apart each country. Honestly, there didn’t seem to be many differences visually.
2. In my design, I thought there were several ways to enhance demonstrating this data, in a way that would more meaningfully express the Reykjavik Index. Firstly, I made the index/hashes more refined (every 1 unit) because that better demonstrated the countries which are clearly in a different category as far as their Reykjavik rating, than those of the top contenders. I also created a vertical reference line for the G7 Average because it was slightly confusing to intertwine that measure with the other country measures. I thought a reference line would better serve this visualization because it would clearly indicate the average and show how the whole set of countries compared to it to visualize their performances. Lastly, I thought the use of colors could be taken advantage of telling the story. I believe using more alarming/negative colors best represent countries that fell below the average, which is part of the story the article was trying to communicate (which countries are struggling versus performing)! Above the line, I used calming greens to show the countries which were making good progress. Lastly, I used a horizontal bar chart because it was easier to tell which countries were which when ordered in descending order. The original version was confusing because you would have to follow the lines to determine which country scored where. I think my design (using colors, reference lines, refined indexes) tells a more complete story of varying levels of performances of the different countries attempting to bring equality for women.