What?
The population pyramid is a comparison tool that can be more that just a means of comparing male to female population. It can be used to compare two similar data sets that share some kind of parallels, for example data on imports and exports, and data on unemployment.
We are experimenting with how dynamic our population pyramid template is and are interested to hear your thoughts on what we have developed.
Why?
The population pyramid is simple to adapt to many datasets, Flex is a very useful development tool that can mean once a template has been built, it is then simply a matter of customising the template to suit various differing datasets.
When?
Your feedback on this development will determine it's success.
#1: Kate
Really, really useful. I would love to see the labour force pyramid with employment rate figures asap. By the way, why don't you promote this betaworks site more heavily on your main website - I only came across this by reading the OECD statistics newsletter, even though I am on the ABS website regularly (at least once a week).
#2: D Wade
really useful
#3: Adi
It would be great if you could release a version of the population pyramid that allowed external users to specify their own source data file.
The labels and data items could be read from the xml file that the user would either upload from their computer provide a link to on their own server.
As long as you provide a clear specification for what data structure the data file should take, it would give others the freedom to use the flash file with custom data aggregations.
One issue I can see with this is that the scale may need to be dynamically adjusted. Have a look at how the Google/Gapminder motion charts switch between linear and logarithmic scales if you need some inspiration on how to dynamically shift the scale.