It is a good year of 2017 for California because most of drought cleared out in the beginning of this year. With interactive visualization we can experience the drought disappearing process in California faster and clear.
- Color tells the intensity- Dark Red. Red as universal color meaning stop or severe. In this interactive visualization they choose dark red as most intensive level. With the universal color no further explanation is needed and it makes the visualization clear and meaningful.
- Only one focus- California. The focus in this visualization is very clear. It only focuses on one state in the U.S., neither more general nor more detail information is needed. Readers can just focus on how the drought is changing in the state.
- Well-defined time period- Five years. The past five years are meaningful because during the years California has been experienced severe drought, more time period or less would not bring the visualization result as effective as this visualization.
- Clear time sequence- 2011 to 2017. Readers can see the changing of time sequence and can stop anytime to check the drought intensity. Maybe the single data itself is not meaningful but when the data is in the time-sequenced visualization, there is more meaning in each single data.
Reference:
https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2017/02/24/watch-how-fast-a-five-year-drought-can-disappear/