This Project has been updated on BetaWorks
What?
The Business Cycle Tracer is a tool first developed by Statistics Netherlands. It demonstrates the change and course of key economic indicators over time. It visually tells the story of the economic strength or weakness of the economy.
Why?
We're exploiting the simplicity of Adobe Flex and it's ability to visualise data in an appealing way. We are also, on the back of the success of the Animated Population Pyramid, developing more data visualisation tools to tell the story of the ABS data.
When?
Your feedback on this development will determine it's success.
#1: Andy
Great tool, agree that colour may be an issue however may be able to be fixed with the ability to hover over each dot and a popup tells you the applicable heading.
Loading took a while however once it was loaded the operation was fantastic.
#2: JZ
I'm not colour-blind but discriminating some of those colours was very hard, I'd imagine it would be impossible to work out anything if you were colour-blind. Can differnet combinations of primary colours and various shapes be used instead?
A ghosted trail would be nice so the eye can follow each data point as well, much like the option with a mouse pointer.
#3: Gai
Great tool.
Would it be possible to choose to put a trace on? Like the gapminder ones where a trace is left but only for variables that are chosen.
Speed is an issue as others have said, but terrific idea.
#4: Lex
I liked this simplified version at first sight, but I'm afraid you loose information by not using symbols. Besides I wonder if colourblind people can notice the different colours. Like others said before me, it plays too fast.
#5: Samir
Nice tool, it is a simple way of visualizing complex data. As mentioned by the others, I also think that the animation is a bit too quick when you click 'Play' - perhaps it would be nicer if it went at the same speed as it does manually when one moves through the years without any delays in movement??
#6: Lynn
I was having a lot of trouble understanding what was represented in this diagram. Particularly I didn't understand what "Above Trend" and "Below Trend" meant, above or below a predicted trend series? hmmm, probably not.
So I had a look at the Business Cycle Tracer at Statistics Netherlands and found that it's got some useful extra information and features:
i. there's a written analysis of the current month, from this I deduced that "above trend" is another way of saying above the long-term average
ii. the graph is labelled with the period of the figures being shown eg November 2009
iii. you can click through the visualisation a period at a time, rather than using the slider, or you can adjust the speed the visualisation plays at - I found that the Betaworks version plays too fast
I like that in the Betaworks version you can mouse over the items to get the change.
Rather than developing a "new" tool could you use the Statistics Netherlands version, adapting it slightly for the ABS' measures and time periods?
Cheers Lynn
#7: Chris
Looks pretty spiffy to me. I think the animation is a bit too quick, although that may be information overload as a result of having all the indicators on. Buttons to show/hide all indicators would be helpful.