Home › Forums › From Data to Dashboards Summer 2020 › Discussion 2
- This topic has 8 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 1 month ago by julieta lomelin.
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July 18, 2020 at 1:02 pm #6992Liz LewisModerator
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Which type of graph do you think is best for showing Flores del Mundo’s membership trends over the course of the year?
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Does your answer change if you’re graphing total membership versus employee/spouse/dependent?
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Does your answer change if you want to show Eastern and Northern on the same graph?
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July 29, 2020 at 1:38 pm #7086Kara ShowersParticipant
Which type of graph do you think is best for showing Flores del Mundo’s membership trends over the course of the year? I think a line graph would be best to show membership trends over the course of a year.
Does your answer change if you’re graphing total membership versus employee/spouse/dependent? Yes. I think a bar graph with 3 bars (employee, spouse, dependent) over the course of the year would most clearly show how each category compares.
Does your answer change if you want to show Eastern and Northern on the same graph? I would still stick with a bar graph with 3 bars (employee, spouse, dependent) but I would have a color bar for Eastern (let’s say orange) and a different color bar for Northern (let’s say blue) so it is easy to see how the employee/spouse/dependent membership compares for both regions.
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August 1, 2020 at 1:29 pm #7098Ian LemieuxParticipant
>>Which type of graph do you think is best for showing Flores del Mundo’s membership trends over the course of the year?
– Based on Few’s work, I’d propose a line graph with points, given the ability to highlight the trend over time. As he notes, “lines do a great job of showing the shape of data as it flows and changes from point to point… the movement of values up and down through time”.>>Does your answer change if you’re graphing total membership versus employee/spouse/dependent?
– I’d move from line graph with points, to a bar graph here. Intent would be to demonstrate part-to-whole, with stacked bars to display employee, spouse, and dependent member data over time.>>Does your answer change if you want to show Eastern and Northern on the same graph?
– Here another time series where a bar graph, but without stacking, would be useful, placing Eastern and Northern data side-by-side for each time interval (be it monthly or quarterly). -
August 1, 2020 at 10:58 pm #7099Masis ParunyanParticipant
For the purposes of displaying trends in Flores del Mundo’s total membership (Eastern & Northern regions combined), and for showing Eastern and Northern regional memberships separately (but on the same graph), I would use a line graph. For the former, I would use a line without dots. For the latter, I would opt to include the dots to help highlight the differences between the two at each monthly interval.
If we wanted to subdivide the data and show graphs depicting Employee, Spouse, and Dependent enrollment all on the same graph, I might be inclined to suggest that a bar graph would be more effective. The difference between the range of numbers for each subdivision is great enough that, in my opinion, a line graph doesn’t effectively compare the groups to one another. For the Northern region, where there is such a large gap between the number of employee enrollees and the number of either spouse or dependent enrollees, I might even consider using a stacked bar chart. Otherwise, I would consider using a break in the Y-axis in order to effectively demonstrate the trends between the much larger and much smaller values (without having the smaller values appear like an indiscriminate flat line).
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August 2, 2020 at 4:10 pm #7100Allyson CoganParticipant
If the stated purpose was to display trends within the Flores del Mundo’s total membership data then I would choose a line graph without dots in an effort to solely highlight the general trend.
If the total membership data split into employee, spouse, and child was being shown I would use a cluster column bar graph. This sort of graph would allow for the viewer to see the comparisons over time between the 3 subgroups while also seeing the general trend of membership data over the year. This sort of graph can become cluttered so significant time would be spent with color and labels in an effort to make the chart simplistic and intuitive.
If Northern and Eastern were being displayed on the same charts tracking membership trends over the year I would resort back to the line graph without dots in 2 different colors.
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August 4, 2020 at 3:07 pm #7101Sherry RobertsParticipant
Which type of graph do you think is best for showing Flores del Mundo’s membership trends over the course of the year?
Answer: I would use a line graph with dots, I looked at it both ways and thought the dots were easier to seeDoes your answer change if you’re graphing total membership versus employee/spouse/dependent?
Answer: Yes, I think a stacked bar graph with labels would work best for this scenarioDoes your answer change if you want to show Eastern and Northern on the same graph?
Answer: Yes I think I would go with stacked bar graphs for this showing both regions side by side for comparison. The graph would be too busy if you showed it by month so I would change to quarters maybe. -
August 6, 2020 at 11:06 pm #7105Emilia CainParticipant
Which type of graph do you think is best for showing Flores del Mundo’s membership trends over the course of the year?
I would choose a line graph for this purpose. Since we are interested in trends, I would choose a line graph without dots.Does your answer change if you’re graphing total membership versus employee/spouse/dependent?
Yes, a stacked graph could be used for this purpose. This way you could show the trend while showing employee/spouse/dependent membership.Does your answer change if you want to show Eastern and Northern on the same graph?
For this I would again suggest using a line graph if what you wantes to show was the membership trend. If we were to show total membership versus employee/spouse/dependent for Eastern and Northern, the I would use side by side stacked bars. -
August 9, 2020 at 4:34 pm #7110Andrea DresbachParticipant
Which type of graph do you think is best for showing Flores del Mundo’s membership trends over the course of the year?
A: A line graph would probably be the best option for showing the membership trend over time.Does your answer change if you’re graphing total membership versus employee/spouse/dependent?
A: Yes. Plotting totals and employee/spouse/dependents on a line graph would become too busy/confusing. I imagine using a bar graph or stacked bar graph would work well for an easy visual comparison of the sub groups.Does your answer change if you want to show Eastern and Northern on the same graph?
A: I think a line graph or a bar graph could work, depending on whether the graph were to include the employee/spouse/dependent breakdown. If comparing the Eastern/Northern totals over time, then a line graph with 2 lines would work. Otherwise, a side by side bar graph could work well. -
August 21, 2020 at 3:46 pm #7135julieta lomelinParticipant
I like line graphs better for trends in time even when comparing different groups, some comments are right that if it is very important to have a sense that they are part of a whole a staked bar could work, but I usually find them very full and confusing.
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