In these hours, more and more names of the new German government get known. Time to present the vita of the established and probable ministers in a graphic - done so on the website of the German weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT. The different phases in the careers of the politicians are depicted in timelines, divided by the use of colours. This abstract graphic relinquishes any decoration and has a very simple, white background. Moving the mouse over the timelines invokes a pop-up with more detailled, partially redundant information of the politicians. This "outsourcing" of data in pop-ups ensures the graphic appears not too dense, but rather clear. The multiple dimensions of information are additionally grouped in several tabs, which is a usefool tool, but uses further redundancy because of the repeating timelines.
Graphic source:http://interactive.zeit.de/bundeskabinett/#/merkel-iii/0
Here is another graphic dealing with complex, multidimensional, abstract information in a pleasing way. At first fance, it appears quite complicated and dense, but the concept is simple. The size respectively colour of the bubbles vary depending on the party's budget and political position. Ideologically similar parties are visibly grouped by colour and their position in the coordinate system. So it is easier to distinguish between them and the reader will not to be overcharged. Probably with the same intention, the designers resigned any decoration. The arrows indicate interrelationships in form of support cash flows between the parties. Use your mousecursor to get in-depth information including pie-charts and graphs concerning the single (micro-) parties. Maps depicting political landscapes are nothing new, but the one presented here connects several ideas - relating to the use of bubbles, arrows and overlays - in this very specific topic.
Graphic source: http://palmares.lexpress.fr/financement-micro-partis/
Today i present a very clear solution of how to present complex, multidimensional political data in a way easily to comprehend: A project created by arte, a french-german public-service broadcaster. Actually, it is not a single graphic but an quasi-interactive collection of several. Use your arrow keys or mousecursor to navigate between them. This not only enables to distribute the high amount of data and to decrease density. It also allows to compare the values of the variables of the presented states immediately. The signal colour red is used to indicate the country you are informing about, as well as in the bar on the right to indicate the recent variable (from the term of office of the head of state to the GINI-Index). Red also serves to stress the manifestations of the variables of the single countries. Other colours besides red and grey rarely are applied. Decoration is used sparely in a kind of Pop art style. In contrast, the varierty of implemented graphics is high: Bar charts, radar charts, pie charts, pyramids ans so on. They are applied properly, depending on the amount of levels of the variables. The last page contains a summary and causes a little bit of redundancy.
Graphic source: http://ilovedemocracy.arte.tv/de/
