For this week’s assignment I created a circle timeline chart using Flourish. I first downloaded a csv file which contained data taken from this website on the most popular baby names in the U.S. from 2001 to 2010.
design
I wanted to explore how the counts of the most popular names differed, or if it did at all, between years and also by gender. Therefore, I created a circle timeline chart which is a moving chart that shows the most popular names over the years and the counts for each name. I think that this is an appropriate way of presenting the data because you’re able to visually see the differences in counts between the gender categories. Because the visualization is a continuous loop, you’re easily able to see the differences in counts for the most popular baby name of that year whether it’s a girls’ or boys’ name. By hovering your mouse over each shape, you can see what the name is, its specific count for that year, and what gender it is categorized in.
style
To improve the clarity of the visualization, I changed the color palette and got rid of unnecessary grid lines as it increased the visual clutter. I also increased the minimum and maximum sizes of the shapes because the default setting made them pretty small and the differences in sizes relative to counts were not clear. I also turned on the beeswarm mode so the data shapes are more spread out and easier to see each individual data point.
connection to Readings
Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein’s article, “What Gets Counted Counts” made me reflect on how data is never truly neutral as it reflects the categories that are made by us humans. The choice to include certain categories but exclude others inevitably ends up manipulating data in a way that is normalized to us. This project made me think of how we’ve assigned specific genders to names and, in doing so, reinforce gendered stereotypes. It is easy for us to associate certain names with genders without questioning or even just thinking about where these assumptions originated from. Through readings and by working with data, we can begin to think more critically about things we take as a given.