This visualization project is meant to show the viewer information about Imports/Exports of major trading countries around the globe. The visualization begins with a view of the world with highlights on the trade volume (total imports + exports) in 2016. Gradually is pulled through a narrative where they are shown how few countries control the volume of trade. They are next shown Net exports, and see that some heavy trade companies are Trade Surplus or Deficit. At the end, they are able to pull down bars to see the top 5 items that each country exports
This visualizaton tries best to follow a Martini glass structure. The first few slides take the viewer through a story where they are taught about the structure of the import/export business across the globe. After following the story, they can click on a dropdown which allows them to see what the top 5 exports for each country are.
As discussed, the scenes utilize several methods. First, the majority of the story of the visualization uses different views of the same world map to convey how concentrated global trade is in less than a dozen countries. Then, the user can choose a selection by country to see the value of the top trade items for those individual countries. To not go too crazy on scope, we only use 10 countries for the individual export choices. The users are walked through the choices via the links at the bottom of the page - one to return to the previous slide, the second to take them to the next step in the story by posing a question.
Annotations are used quite extensively in the map tabs. Each annotation draws the reader’s view to the countries being discussed as well as the values which correspond to that country. The final slide labels the tabs to show the amount in billions of the top traded items.
The Visualization uses several parameters. The colors of the charts are drawn from a JSON file that uses a range to color the graph. Dark green in the Volume slides means heavier volume, line green lighters. In the Net Export slide, countries that do more exporting are dark green, countries like US are net importers. A simple Forward button drives the user to complete the visualization. The final slide uses a dropdown to change the country to observe the exports of the given country of choice by the user. The changing parameters here are the dollars in billions of the top 5 exported products. Changing the country changes the parameter.
At any point, the user can trigger forward and backward through the slides. They can also be bounced to the About piece at the start of the project (this page). On the final slide, the user can change the country name in order to trigger a change in the bar charts. This is told to the user at the top of the page and the typical dropdown bar urges the user to update and make changes.
In future versions I’d like to: