Juliet Traylor

The heat chart below shows every shot taken from the NCAA tournament. It shows a clear crescent, a hot spot under the net and a line through the middle. The huge amount of data used to create this chart ensures the chart’s accuracy. The layout and colors make the chart easy to understand. Additionally, the key gives the reader clarity. The only con: It is unclear when the data ends. The chart only signifies that the data started with the 2013-2014 season.

The spray chart below shows Carlos Santana’s stats of where the ball landed after a hit. The colors are used appropriately.The chart does a good job showing what kind of hitter he is. For example, we can conclude that his fly balls and line drives are generally the furthest hit. His pop up balls are most often fouls. His ground balls are often towards the left and usually don’t end up that far. We can also conclude that he is likely right handed. The visual portrays a baseball field and it is titled and scaled accurately.

For the average reader, the graph below is easily consumable. It takes a look at 5v5 xG pace, which means the number of expected goals when pace of play is at a certain leve. It shows a clear s type line along with the use of team logos. Unfortunately, it is lacking of x axis. Thankfully, the formula used is listed. Judging by the s line it is concluded that the chart is depicting some sort of trend. It is assumed that teams with the most shots are toward the top while the team with the less shots are toward the bottom.

In an article posted by Quartz.com discussing extra point attempts, the author used the visualization below to illustrate the spike in two point conversion attempts. The data was taken from a study done for the New York Times. At first glimpse, it could be confusing that the article was saying there is a spike in attempts while the graph shows it as being less than previous seasons. The author clarifies that the 2015 data was taken from the first two weeks of the season. Additionally, I would have preferred seeing the first two week two-point conversion attempt rates of every year instead of full seasons being compared to two weeks. Otherwise, the colors are simple and the chart is easily comprehensible.

This graph depicts the velocity of the boat at each part of the race. It also shows the velocity of winning crews vs losing crews throughout the race. It is interesting that they normalized the mean velocity between men and women to compare them on the same field. The data is clear and comprehensive. It shows that women usually have a faster start than men and men usually have a stronger finish, while they are just about even throughout the middle. The dashed and solid lines along with shapes do a good job distinguishing where each line is. It interesting that winners have a stronger mid-race pace while winners and losers have just about equal start and finish 500 meter velocity.