Unlike their compatriots in the rest of the country, many New Englanders rely on heating oil to keep their homes warm during the frosty winter. Americans in other regions rely overwhelmingly on electricity or natural gas for heat. But according to a report published by the Energy Information Administration in 2015, in the Northeast (New England plus New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania), about 5 million households, or about 20 percent, use heating oil. The percentage of households heating with oil is 64.2 in Maine, 46.1 in New Hampshire, 43.8 in Vermont, 43.7 in Connecticut, 32.6 in Rhode Island, and 29.2 in Massachusetts. While reading on this topic, I stumbled upon the following graph:
The above graph shows the average heating oil prices for the months of October through March which happens to be the peak winter season. The graph covers across the data for an entire decade from 2006 to 2017.
What did I like about this graph?
The author wants the viewers to compare the heating oil prices over the years and across the months. I can conclude that prices are unstable and one can’t accurately predict the price for the upcoming years with this historical data.
The graph encompasses the statistics for the entire winter season. Being among of the coldest regions in America, the MA people would be surely curious to see the change in the prices over of the peak months of winter.
The bar graph labels the price for each month of the most recent year i.e 2016-17 and that helps the readers understand the current pricings because that is something which is presently impacting the state.
How will I make it better?
Claim:
The bar graph simply plots the price changes over time. It does act like a dictionary and tells us about the heating oil prices for a point in time over the past 10 years. However, it does not have a claim and has no significant insight one can take away to influence an appropriate action.
Aesthetics:
We have learnt that efficient visualizations should convey a lot of meaningful insights. But having said that, a graph which tries to put in too much of information might look messy and get too overwhelming for the viewers. And I think that is exactly the situation with this graph. When I gave the first look to the graph, it took me a while to figure out what is it exactly trying to present. Incorporating the data for about six months and that too for an entire decade becomes too much to comprehend.
Though it makes sense to use a different shade to show each year, the legend is not very clear and it takes some effort to match the colors in the legend to those in the actual bar graph. It is hard to distinguish different shades of the blue used as all of them look similar. In fact, the color used for 2010/11 and 2012/13 looks absolutely the same to me.
If the data is split into 2 graphs, one covering the recent 5 years and the other covering the remaining historical data, it is comparatively easy to note the change in prices and how is it varying from time to time. Using distinct colors to represent each year can make the graph more intuitive.
Factors affecting the oil prices:
The heating oil prices may change owing to a variety of reasons which include: the change in the crude oil prices, demand for the year, weather for that season, change in the government rules or regulations. The above graph does not talk about any of these and hence the curious viewers are left to wonder the reasons for the increase/decrease in the price in a particular month for a particular year.
If this data is backed up with at least one of the above factors, the graph becomes more enlightening and gives mores insights. For e.g., if the graph also shows the change in the temperature over the years, then one can correlate the temperature changes with the oil price changes and hence verify if the temperature indeed affects the oil prices as the notion goes.
Audience: The oil consumers, oil dealers, wholesalers, refineries and the government of Massachusetts seem to be the main audience for this graph. However, the graph does not suggest any action that could be taken by the people in any of these categories. For e.g consumers do not get a direction as to how can they deal with the price surge nor does it inform the oil dealers regarding the strategies they could adopt to survive during the lean seasons.
For e.g. if the temperature variance really makes a considerable impact on the heating oil prices, then depending the weather forecast, one can predict how low the temperature might go. The customers can then plan to have enough heating oil storage during the lean periods by purchasing the oil at low prices and then using the same during chilly periods. Or they might as well switch to crude oil. On the contrary, the wholesalers or dealers can order additional supplies from distant places (Europe or Gulf) to cover the potential rise in customer demand.
Redesign: In the below link, I have tried to redesign the visualization to present my ideas based on the data collected from the source in the article. Additionally, I have also referred to the US Climate Data portal to collect the temperature dataset for Massachusetts. I have also worked on the aesthetics to make the graphs neat and clean.
The below visualizations are drawn for the months Oct to Mar for the years 2012 through 2017. Similar visualizations can be drawn for the previous years. The visualization gives a comparison between the Massachusetts heating oil prices and the temperature which happens to be one of the others affecting the oil prices.
References:
Original article: http://www.mass.gov/eea/energy-utilities-clean-tech/home-auto-fuel-price-info/heating-oil-price-surveys.html
Climate Data: http://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/boston/massachusetts/united-states/usma0046/2017/3
MA Heating Oil Prices Data: http://www.mass.gov/eea/energy-utilities-clean-tech/home-auto-fuel-price-info/historical-heating-oil-prices.pdf
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=5270588&page=1
http://nhoilheat.com/factors-affecting-heating-oil-prices/
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_juice/2015/12/new_england_s_warm_winter_brings_record_low_oil_prices.html