Visualizing supply and demand in the skilled technical workforce
Created as a part of Data Science for the Public Good at the University of Virginia’s Biocomplexity Institute. I wrote about making this graphic on Data and Dragons.
Design notes, excerpted from my blog post about the graphic:
Making wacky graphs is fun. Using them to communicate is a risk. They take more attention to read, and there’s always a chance that the reader will give up entirely or misunderstand what the chart is trying to show.
I decided to use the paint drip chart for four reasons:
The chart was a good match for the venue. I designed this graphic for a poster session and a presentation. In both scenarios, I was on hand to talk through the visualization and answer any questions. I usually go for clarity over attention-seeking, but…
The chart is really good at pulling people in. At the poster session, the paint drip chart drew people across the room to ask me what it meant. During the presentation, audience members who had listened with polite interest started leaned forward, asking questions, and discussing policy implications.
I was sharing the chart with data geeks. We presented at the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, and at an event called the Data Science for the Public Good symposium. I knew that my audience was used to interpreting data visualizations, so I gambled that they would stick with me through an explanation of the chart. They did.
There wasn’t a simpler way to do it. I weighed the options and decided that showing matches within individual jobs was worth the demands of a complex chart.