I'm a sucker for anything cute and bubbly, and the U.K. Energy Consumption Guide created by Epiphany is no exception. It combines a vertical scrolling site with a lot of data visualization about different types of fuel and how they've been used historically. Most of the charts are solid and the interaction adds an even higher level of clarity and understanding.

While I like this circle packing chart, I'm sure there will be doubters. It's very similar to McCandless' natural gas visualization that received a lot of flack. But generally speaking, anything that is engaging and welcoming garners a little extra time from the visitor to make sense of it.

A while back, Robert Kosara and Caroline Ziemkiewicz shared their work on Parallel Sets, a way to visually explore categorical data. Software developer, Jason Davies, just ported the technique to Data-Driven Documents (D3). The interactions for sorting and rearranging are similar to the Kosara and Ziemkiewicz version, but the D3 version of course runs in the browser and has some nifty transitions. Try toggling the show curves box and the icicle plot one.

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In a study by TheLadders (of n equals 30), recruiters looked at resumes and make some judgments. During evaluations, eye tracking software was employed, and they found that the recruiters spent about six seconds on a resume looking for six main things: name, current company and title, previous company and title, previous position start and end dates, current position start and end dates, and education. After that, it was a crapshoot.

Beyond these six data points, recruiters did little more than scan for keywords to match the open position, which amounted to a very cursory "pattern matching" activity. Because decisions were based mostly on the six pieces of data listed above, an individual resume’s detail and explanatory copy became filler and had little to no impact on the initial decision making. In fact, the study’s eye tracking technology shows that recruiters spent about 6 seconds on their initial "fit/no fit" decision.

If I ever have to submit a resume, I'm just going to put those six things as bullets and then the rest will all be keywords in small, light print. It'll be like job search SEO.

Update: I've been told that TheLadder's reputation might be less than savory, and a quick search shows some in agreement, so it might be wise to sidestep the service. Instead, go with my awesome six-bullet advice and you're gold.

[via @alexlundry]

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Carbon output. We want to reduce it, but some countries have a longer way to go than others. Pitch Interactive shows progress (or non-progress) by country in this interactive for the Climate Institute. Three indices are shown along with an overall score, which is a composite of the three, and countries are sorted by the average score from 1995 to 2008. Higher scores are better.

The interaction makes this graphic. When you switch between indices, the countries are sorted appropriately and the time series for each country are drawn. You can also click on a country to get a closer view, which albeit is only four data points per country and index, but it's still useful.

The lines for each country get thicker from left to right, which was to provide a sense of progress, but I wonder if it would be worthwhile to use thickness to represent an increase or decrease from the previous year. Then again, that's easy enough to see already, so maybe not.

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Jay Jacobs has some fun with roulette simulations and explores the odds of winning for different bets. Above shows a simulation of 250 spins 20,000 times. Or to put it differently, it's like simulating the play of 20,000 people, who each took 250 spins and always bet on a single number.

I'm not sure why it doesn't start to get red until you're $500 in the hole, but bottom line: the longer you play, the higher probability you will lose all your money. That was my main takeaway from Probability 101 in undergrad. The rest is a blur.

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In the dancing boxes, you can see how states are inclined to vote based on exit poll groups. In the scatterplot, on the other hand, the groups within each state are plotted, with an added dimension towards candidates other than Santorum and Romney. The navigation bar on top and clicker on the left let you see tendencies of each state.

Like the dancing boxes, the transitions make the chart. As you browse by state or by category, you're able to see differences between groups when shapes move across the screen.

In somewhat related news, The New York Times graphics department is looking for summer interns. Send your interest to Steve Duenes (duenes [at] nytimes [dot] com) and Amanda Cox (coxa [at] nytimes [dot] com). I interned there a few years ago, so I can tell you first-hand that you'll learn a lot — probably more than in any class you've taken — while working with the best in the business.

[New York Times]

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This came via Twitter from @christopferd:

Will @flowingdata caption my 2 yr old's first [accidental] chart with his #thomas trains?

How could I resist? You gotta get 'em while they're young. I added the labels, mostly to show off my expansive knowledge of Thomas the Train Tank Engine and Friends.

With Obama's recent budget for next year proposed, Shan Carter et. al of The New York Times let you explore the plan in their new interactive. It provides four distinct views of what the breakdowns look like, all the while keeping a distinct link between each click with smooth transitions and consistent objects (much of which was handled with Mike Bostock's D3).

Initially, a view of all spending is shown at once. Each bubble represents a chunk of spending, and each is colored by the change from last year. Green shows more money and red means less, and as indicated on the chart, spending is oriented from largest increase to largest cut, top to bottom.

Next tab: types of spending. This is when the magic happens. Instead of skipping to a new graphic, the existing bubbles divide to show mandatory and discretionary spending. Jump to the next view to see changes to discretionary spending, and finally see spending shown by department.

The transitions make this graphic. It's often useful to see data from different angles, and the smooth transitions (rather than abrupt jumps) let you see how things are and how they have changed, effectively. This is fine work.

[New York Times]

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Presidential candidates have raised $186 million up to now, according to the Federal Election Commission. The New York Times lets you compare the amounts raised by each candidate, over time and space. Simply select a candidate on the left, and another on the right to see how they match up. Fundraising by candidates from previous elections, at the same time of year, are also included for context.

While not the focus of the interactive, the distributions for donation size at the bottom seem to be especially telling.

[New York Times via infosthetics]

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Jonathan Corum for The New York Times examines word usage by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union addresses and the words used by Republican candidates in their debates. Many of you will be happy to know that no word clouds were harmed in the making of this graphic.

[New York Times]

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