Change Over Time: Economic Policy Institute Datazone

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Economic Policy Institute Datazone

Another way to get a sense of the key factors that are at work and determine how well our economy is doing is to take a look at National Data from the EPI Datazone. Many more factors are available for review either by subcategory such as unemployment rates, or by downloading a spreadsheet with all the time series data for all the factors.

There are many more factors presented on the reference web page than were included in the article noted in our previous post - How is Our Economy Doing?

The one key thing that is missing is some way to make it easy for the lay person to quickly view all the the key factors, one at at a time, in an easy to ready trend graphic display .

A key goal of this blog is to help us move in the direction of ready reusability and we will be returning to this them in future posts.

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Trend Visualization Principles

1. Context Comes First. Ask all the subject matter experts: What are the most important factors? What's missing? What other factors must you include?

2.Create a History. Measure, record and archive a trend history of every important factor. For best results, measure at a relatively high frequency.

3. Look at ALL the Data. Once you have a history of the most important factors, you'll find charts with but a single variable will tell a powerful story all by themselves. Avoid beginning with the most complicated, most cluttered charts before you have established a good context by actually looking at each important factor on its own.

4. Share ALL Your Data. When you publish a chart, share the readily reusable data with the chart. Include the entire time range of the data you analyzed even if the charts you presented use a shorter interval.

5. Explain Your Calculations whenever you recombine or normalize your data; document your sources.

6. Show Your Thinking. Place explanatory text for your findings in close physical proximity to the your published trend charts. Data + Charts + Text creates a full package that encourages further conversation.

7. Insure Readability. Make sure the axes and titles and other text graphics are easily readable.

What principles do you see as contributing most to improved understanding and enhanced collaboration?

Please add your comments in one of this blog's posts. Thanks.