CS 573 - Data Visualization
Botao Han
Reflection 1
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/s7la7d/oc_student_covid_cases_in_our_local_school/
This week I read a post on Reddit. A person posted a bar chart that described the overall cases in their local school district.
This is a straightforward bar chart with numbers of cases on the left side and the dates on the bottom. Some may say this is a poorly organized chart, but I think this is precisely the chart that satisfied the most common need. This chart showed a sharp increase in cases from July 11th, 2021, to January 22nd, 2022. This is an excellent chart because it provides the information a group of people needs to know, the college student around the country. With the aggravated pandemic, a new semester after the winter break has begun. With more and more students coming back to school, some people from hometowns may get infected and infectious to other students. Some students may not realize the problem and come to class in person even though some classes offer an online option. This chart could be an excellent example of how severe the problem is and get less contact as possible.
Even though this chart did its job showing the severity of the pandemic, it still has some flaws. The static could have a tag on top of the data to present the exact numbers of cases. Also, there could be labels for the x and y-axis to make the data more intuitive.
Still, I think this is a great chart showing the information people really need. Nowadays, many charts are beautiful and eye-catching but ignore the real purpose of visualized data, showing information more intuitively.