Bar Chart:
Beeswarm Plot:
The beeswarm plot displays OECD’s general government debt-to-GDP ratio as the amount of a country’s gross government debt as a percentage of its GDP. The ratio is widely considered to be an indicator of a country’s fiscal health (data.oecd.org, 2018). The beeswarm plot displays the linear progression of debt by country between 1995-2017. The circles on the plot represent the existence of debt, and the circle’s volume indicates the country’s annual percentage of debt-to-GDP ratio.
Steamgraph:
The steamgraph time series plot displays the same OECD data, and the dispersal of countries’ debt from 1995-2017. The graph’s line densities represent the ratio of a country’s debt as a percentage of its GDP. The countries are ordered by the largest percentage on top, to the smallest percentage on the bottom. The years of compiled OECD data are listed across the X axis, and each country is represented, and labelled, by a line across the graph. The changing density of the line corresponds to annual changes in the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio. The steamgraph’s time series function allows the reader to clearly view and recognize macro trends in global debt.
The graph’s color scheme has been adjusted to highlight the US’s debt transgression compared to the international community. The US is portrayed in red to stand out against the other countries’ light-color scale. The color adjustment allows the reader to clearly see how the US’s debt-to-GDP ratio compares to its peers. In addition, the color scale enables the reader to clearly view how the US’s debt has steadily increased since 2008.
Beeswarm vs. Steamgraph
The beeswarm plot is a distribution graph that uses circles to display OECD countries’ annual debt-to-GDP ratios, the circle’s size is in proportion to the size of the country’s debt-to-GDP percentage (data.oecd.org,2018). There is no color variation on the graph so the reader’s eyes are drawn to the disparate shape of the circles. After recognizing the circles’ different shapes, the reader’s eyes move to the left to identify the legend. The legend enables the reader to view from left to right a single country’s changes in its percentage of debt-to-GDP. The graph’s black and white color scale forces the reader to concentrate on the size of the circles. The circles and the single color scheme enables the reader to easily compare debt-to-GDP ratios between countries.
The steamgraph includes a color scale, and the graph’s lines include lables, which allow the reader to distinguish between different countries on the graph. The graph uses changes in line thickness to display annual changes in a country’s debt ratio. As a time series graph, steamgraph clearly displays trends in global debt, while the beeswarm plot displays how a particular country’s debt has changed over the twenty-two year period. On the steamgraph plot, the reader can clearly view the drop in debt in 2007, followed by a global rise in 2008. Furthermore, the steam graph’s color scale is currently focused on the US, with all other countries in gray-scale. This allows a US audience to view the US’s debt in the context of international debt-to-GDP trends. However, depending on the graph’s audience, the color scale could be adjusted to focus on a different country.