That’s a really stupid scale on the lower chart. Jan-00, Jun-02, Nov-04, Apr-07? How is anyone expected to work out the seasonal variation in unemployment from that? The ticks should have been at 12 month intervals, labeled every two or three years with the same month, preferably the month of the typical peak or trough.
Derek, I agree the labeling is poor — but did you notice that the axis labels are also interactive? (the month of each datapoint popup as you cursor along the axis). I think shading the years vertically might have worked well in this case.
2 Responses to Construction Jobs
derek
October 5th, 2009 at 09:50
That’s a really stupid scale on the lower chart. Jan-00, Jun-02, Nov-04, Apr-07? How is anyone expected to work out the seasonal variation in unemployment from that? The ticks should have been at 12 month intervals, labeled every two or three years with the same month, preferably the month of the typical peak or trough.
Dustin
October 5th, 2009 at 10:32
Derek, I agree the labeling is poor — but did you notice that the axis labels are also interactive? (the month of each datapoint popup as you cursor along the axis). I think shading the years vertically might have worked well in this case.