What?
The ABS has redeveloped the Animated Population Pyramids using a new technology called Adobe Flex.
Why?
The current pyramids were created using an older technology called SVG, which Adobe discontinued support for in early 2009. We have redeveloped the pyramids in Adobe Flex, which is a free open source framework for building and maintaining expressive web applications that deploy consistently on all major browsers, desktops, and operating systems. It has also enabled us to consolidate 9 separate SVG files into one Flex file, and has reduced maintenance requirements as it is a lot easier to update with new data (XML).
When?
We aim to release the new Animated Population Pyramids by the end of 2009.
#1: Anthony
Congratulations: a great improvement on the usual statistical publications.
If you are planning further developments, it would be interesting to see how the pyramid would change under various assumptions of immigration rates and what it would would like under the constraint of maintaining a stable population.
#2: Jim
Having the source data in XML makes it much easier for me than if it were solely provided in Microsoft Excel format. Thanks.
#3: Shelly
It would be good if we could highlight more than one age group in one or both sexes so that we can easily calculate the age-target we are researching.
#4: Max
Nice work.
It would be nice if you could overtype the Year field and total population field so you could quickly pull up the details for a particular year or find out when our population was (or will) reach a particular milestone
#5: C-J
I think this beta-version is great. It is one of the best web based animated population pyramids I have seen.
It is good that both Australia and the states and territorries are easily available.
It is great that the user has the options of playing the animation at different speeds and manually move from year to year. The manual sliding bar brings out the little kid in me.
There is a subtle change in colour shading from darker to lighter when the pyramid animation proceeds from actual values to projected values. Yes, I am red-green colour blind and I can distinguish the change. However, there should probably also be an indication in the legend for when it is an actual ERP value or a projected value that is displayed.
It is brilliant that details of one single age cohort are displayed when the cursor is placed on top of each bar in the pyramid. I also noticed that I can click on one bar for both the male and female side of the pyramid, resulting in a different colour shading of each bar.
One possible enhancement would be to give users the option to indicate more than one bar at the same time. For example the baby-boomer cohort could be indicated by clicking on the bars that represent this cohort. It would also be good if this selection could be maintained through the animation. As it is now, the selection disappears when the animation starts. If the selection could remain, it would be easier to follow a specific cohort through from the start in 1971 to the end in 2051. However, I understand that this could be technically difficult to achieve.
I assume that the projections in the beta-version are out-dated since they end at 2051 instead of 2056, which would be the 50-year horizon from the 2006 Census.
#6: Rhonda
This must have great application as a planning and forecasting tool.
#7: Mark
I think it is good to, a wonderful visual add to understanding important social changes in the future.
However, I think that in addition to the sex ratio, statistics for the dependency ratio, elderly dependency ratio, and youth dependency ratio should be displayed.
#8: Lex
I like the territorial addition! Personally I think the parsing of the XML takes quite a while...
#9: Georgia
The new animated pop pyramids are a big improvement on the old ones. The dropdown list is especially useful as it means far fewer clicks and easier state comparisons. Meg is right about the note for Australia needing to explain that data for 100+ is not included. It doesn't make sense having a generic note displayed when it does not apply to all. And I agree with Libby that being able to select and highlight a cohort to follow it through time would be a fantastic additon if it's possible. And yes, %s would probably make them more comparable. All in all though - it's great.
#10: Arifur
I like the idea of such visualization. It clearly shows how population aging affect the shape of pyramid. One thing Icouldn't understand that when the color changed it gose from actual to projected population but it also changed the number of population by about 10,000 per sex. Is there any perticular reason for that.
#11: John
A nice development - it would be handy if you could create a button for copying or saving the displayed version of the pyramid to a csv or excel file. Also a variation in font/colours for text and popn bars would be useful. If you were able to add ATSI vs not ATSI as an option (even if only at Aus level but better still at State level) that would also be great.
#12: Monique
The interactive element of this technology is excellent! In line with Robert Didham's comment on 14/08, it would be great to have information in a pyramid like this for country of birth and or language data (to assist with projected service planning).
#13: Craig
A Brilliant start!
This is light years ahead of the old data charts the ABS used to provide.
I've referred the work you're doing to a Adobe Flex specialist to provide some feedback on how you've used the platform. I believe she already has some ideas to optimise how you're using the technology.
#14: Shelby
I like it generally, but agree there needs to be more distinction between actual and projected data, and something to explain the sudden colour change in the graphs. I found myself wondering why the colour changed (and if it was my imagination) then replayed it to see when it occured. That's when I realised why. Maybe you can have some kind of indicator on the timeline?
Is it possible to do multiple graphs at once, so you can see how a particular state moves in comparison to the national average?
#15: Libby
The pyramid looks fantastic! It would be great to be able to select a year (eg user's birth year) and have a line to follow visually as the pyramid moves through the years. Is this possible with this new technology?
#16: John
Looks good, works well.
Colours paler (too pale) in IE, OK in Mozilla (on my system).
The bars are a litle 'busy' for me, with the shading in between.
Don't think the fancy treatment on the axis is helpful.
I guess the 'feedback' button will work when this is online.
#17: Tony
* Looks good. I too, would suggest that a slightly clearer transition from actual to projected figures (I'm red/green colour blind - the existing colours are OK if a bit stereotypical).
* It'd be nice if I could tweek underlying parameters so that the projection can be customised without exporting to our own programs. I'm not sure that it would be possible to deal with between state/territory migration here - but that would be a bonus!
* I'm not sure that I understand why you cut off the state pyramids at 85y? It might look a little ragged - but an appreciation of the growth in the numbers in the 85-100 range is valuable at state and terrritory levels.
#18: Gerald
Excellent stuff, really well done.
I was wondering if you might consider adding a second version, with a focus on proportional representation (%) of age groups. This, I believe, would provide real knock-out visualization of changing age structures.
Is this an in-house development, can you provide me with contact details of developers?
Again, congratulations!
#19: Richard
Excellent development -- readily accessible and ideal for use in a range of teaching and research situations. The colours aren't the best and as someone indicated in an earlier comment, the distinction between enumerated and projected populations needs to be clearer. A downloadable excel spreadsheet of the underlying single year of age data would be extremely useful as well.
#20: Megan
The note at the top left says that 85+ aren't included for the states and territories, there should also be a note for Australia saying that 100+ aren't included. Maybe the note could change depending on which pyramid is displayed?
The 2008 projection data in the Australian pyramid looks quite different to the 2007 ERP. It looks like it might be an old projection. The 2008 projections in the state and territory pyramids look ok though.
And I'm not keen on the blue and pink - reminds me of baby colours!
Oh, again in the note, as per the corporate manual state and territory shouldn't have a capital (manual K - Publishing and Dissemination, section 02 - Publishing: Standards and Guidelines, subsection 11-04 - Editorial Style: Capitals, para 22). Sorry I know that's picky!
#21: Adi
Looking good Jarryd,
It's good to see the ABS finally start to embrace some more modern web technologies. As the OECD data vis work shows, people really love looking at these types of interactive animations.
One comment on the accessiblity of the animation:
I think that there needs to be a clearer distinction between projected and real estimates, e.g. are you sure that subtle change in colour can be distringuished by colour blind individuals?
#22: Robert
These are brilliant and a major advance on the previous versions (and a long way better than the Excel ones I play with.
Two wee suggestions: (1) would it be possible to set up a user-defined pyramid so people can upload their own data - or conversely download the template as a resource? (2) what about also including an Excel spreadsheet downloadabel from the page containing the underlying data?
#23: John
Really nice. Congratulations.
One possible enhancement would be to give users the option of adding an overlay. For instance, users could add a black outline showing values for 2009. This would make it much easier to identify the parts of the pyramid that have changed.