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Election 2006 InfoGraphic Design

Tonight is a big night here in the US. It’s election night, one of my favorite nights of the year. Well, it doesn’t really happen every year, but still. I like it. Ok? Alright.

This evening I was hanging out at NPR.org checking out the stats. One of the reasons I enjoy election nights is the interesting ways that the news organizations use information graphics. Check out this nifty little image:

NPR_InfoGraphic

I really like the use of the “finish line” for control of the house. This image is instantly understandable. The big story all over the news right now is about how close this election will be with respect to Democrats gaining control of the House & Senate, and this image simply explains how that is playing out. Kudos to NPR.

Now let’s check out MSNBC‘s little visual tool:

CNN image

This visualization definitely has its merits. The “speedometer” metaphor is a good one, but seems to connote a feeling of “slow” for Democrats and “fast” for Republicans. Still, it makes visual sense. One complaint I have is that the text is just too small, but that’s nitpicky as well. The biggest problem with this graphic is that it packs so much information into a small space. It’s hard to take away any substantial meaning from this graphic at a glance. One speedometer would have said so much more than the combination of two.

Finally, let’s have a look at a graphic from CNN.com:

CNN Image

What’s with those colors? I count 5 separate colors, each of which I suppose is meant to mean one of 3 things:

  • Blue = Democrat
  • Red = Republican
  • Grey = No election in this term

I have no idea what the in-between colors are for. That horrible neon blue means nothing to me…and neither does the green…despite the one-liner instruction. And to top it off, there is no key (no, that bar with graphics at the top does not count as a key). Come on, CNN, you can do better with your InfoGraphics (in fact, you have to, it’s one of your biggest nights of the year).

So now we’ve seen some good, bad, and ugly of Election InfoGraphic Design. You can weigh in with your thoughts in the comments below. Check it out, my blog is a mini democracy. Cool beans.

jevnin

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3 responses to “Election 2006 InfoGraphic Design”

  1. The highlight of any election is the info-graphics the news networks dish up – oh and the flowering of democracy of course. In the UK the last election was noticeable for the graphics becoming more and more over the top as election night wore on. I think designers like to show what they can do with the latest tools at their disposal and the result is that the signal sometimes gets lost in the “cool” noise. So kudos to NPR for remembering the message.

  2. The MSN one is problematic – as you said for the slow/fast problem, but more so for the fact that many of us non-US readers have no idea which party is the elephant, and which the donkey, so rather than being able to read it quickly, it is confusing and requires a lot of interpretation.

    For my money the best graphics using maps are the polulation ones at http://nytimes.com – for example see this page: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/elections/2006/Senate.html and click on the “View map by Population” button in the bottom right. That is a very Tuftian graphic.