%title 2010-11-17 15:59:38
%date Data visualization: Wikipedia Fundraising
:blog:fossil:diary:

Nathan Yau, over at FlowingData, posted <a href="http://flowingdata.com/2010/11/16/visualize-this-winning-wikipedia-fundraiser-banners/">another "Visualize This" challenge</a>, this time to take a look at some <a href="https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AsJJL4_lxQL9dDc5dWU3WUtUMWM0QW1IUnM2c3N3enc&amp;hl=en#gid=24">data</a> that Wikipedia released regarding their recent fundraising campaign. Â They tracked four banners' performance - how many people visited the pages, how many people wound up starting the donation process, and how many people actually completed the donation process, amongst several other factors. Â Again, I figured I'd take a stab at showing the data with Protovis.

You can see the result <a href="http://vis.mjs-svc.com/wikiappeals/">here</a>.

<!--more-->I like it when data is already fairly organized, and I like it when it winds up being hierarchical. Â I think we, as humans, are attuned to dealing with hierarchies as it is, so it makes sense when we can work with data that's organized as such. Â We're also pretty good at spatial recognition, so it's neat to play around with using area charts in a way that people wouldn't normally expect. Â This led to the natural conclusion of the tiered pie chart, or 'Sunburst' as it's been called. Â The fact that all of this is all so easy to work with in Protovis (their documentation aside, but no rants on that this time), certainly made this visualization easier!

I'll be doing most of these challenges and posting their results here, along with any other little projects I can think up for learning this whole concept. Â I've got a few ideas planned for when I've got the time! Â They'll all be archived at that new site, too, <a href="http://vis.mjs-svc.com">http://vis.mjs-svc.com</a>
