Tool used - mapchart.net

Data source

Why not have a larger color gradient?

If an area is 0-19% forest, it's probably not green.

Bad colour gradient, use atleast white to green.

Ridiculous use of colours. No trees and still green? GTFO.

Tool misused you mean.

Not beautiful when this is how the data is presented :’(

Yes! and 0-19% is a pretty stupid scale.

"%age" - I was looking for the forest "age" by colour legend for a few seconds there.

% is enough, no age needed in title.

Everything about this is so frustrating. The title is so misleading and this is the worst possible way you could use colors.

Like everyone said, the colors can indicate false information. No country is that green in all states. Could you retry this with a wider color range where only places with forest cover are green and places without trees is marked yellow/red/orange or some contrasting color? Next, could you elaborate a little on why age of area is something we should know about?

Guys let's not be so rude in the comment section. You all are right, but could we tone it down a notch when it comes to critical feedback?

This is terrible to try and read due to the colors chosen

I looked at this and thought: Oh yeah, that’s South America

You could use a color gradient that starts from yellow or a yellowish tint to dark green to make the map more intuitive.

I think this is the harshest comment section ive seen for something so inconsequential. I'm gonna re-read all the comments now in Greta Thunbergs voice for a good laugh.

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I mean, you can tell the différence between them. We've seen worse shit

0+20/2=10

So the avrage is 10% in the lowest colour, I think using a very pale green colour is actually better, then just white. Probably every state has sone forest area.

The first actually positive critic in the comments! Finally, thank you!

This data anonymizes the tree’s age. Pretty complicated algorithmic stuff to perform, big win for the privacy buffs out there.

You do realise that each percent could be represented with a different shade, right? Just like the rainbow isn’t exactly 7 colors

%age is “percentage?” You could just write % and it would be fine.

Well no, it's 19% because it is 0-20 percent non inclusive, so for clarity they put in 19.99%

Yeah what is with all the negative comments on this? Making graphs is hard give the guy a break

I’m just popping in to confess that “%age” made me viscerally and anomalistically angry

Seriously, I thiugh it was a graph about age of Forests

Data unclear what you are measuring

Land to % covered by trees? How is Forrest defined?

This display does not lead to answering or generating questions to a problem. My questions are all about what us being measured.

Some suggestions. Color has been covered. Yellow to green would make the graphics pop.

Be precise in your labels and add notes as needed. Take time to figure out what the data is communicating

I have data that has to give both the count of the widget and the percent per day of hiw many times the minimum widget count was met per day. Took me a long time to figure out how to label clearly.

Me too. My brain got stuck on it for way to long. I saw “forest cover” and the green shades, and everything was clear until half a second later I see “%age”. It took me at least a minute to recover what I immediately understood before. I think everyone got irritated by that, the comment section is hilariously angry.

As someone who works in finance, I couldn’t agree with you more on this. This is way beyond stupid and causes confusion. I was looking at a way to interpret this as the age of forests.

You’re missing the point.

When the range starts at 0%, it’s misleading/disingenuous to have that range represented with any shade of green. Maybe a pale yellow or something similar is more apt.

Nothing about the execution of the presentation of this data is “beautiful”

Wow, people in the comments really didn't like the concept of "the darker the green, the more trees".

I’m willing to give way on that. OP is clearly Indian so English isn’t his/her first language.

The choice of gradients however…

I’m very tempted (based on personal experience) to blame the Modi governments nationalist propaganda as the reason for OPs colour choice.

So very tempted…

What does nationalist propaganda have to do with green colour.

Either type % or the word percentage, you don’t need this weird mix ha

You sure you got enough shades of green in here?

“%age”? In all my years, I’ve never seen that

Nationalism usually mean trying to paper over the bad things.

Here, for me, the desire to show India as ‘green’ (with green meaning good), was the reason (knowingly or by instinct) for the choice of colour gradient.

*Percent covered by forests in Indian states.

0-19% should be white or brown. Kinda misleading

What an overthink of a simple visualisation.

Calling it misleading is a little strong. You would prefer it to be brown, I would personally prefer a more pale green, but the amount of hate in the comments is crazy.

The darker the green, the more forests. Seems to make sense to me.

Overthinking things is kind of my thing.

Fairly certain that’s not what I’m doing here.

It’s like - data is beautiful but we are humans! Lol

Likely still green due to agricultural crops

Not in the Northwest, where the Thar desert is located, or much of the country’s northern border regions where the Himalayas are.

I guess I don’t consider data that beautiful when Google Maps’ Satellite view tells a much more precise and interesting picture

Because the colors are just an abstraction. They don't mean that the state is literally that color.

Yea, but this makes it looks like Pandora/tropical paradise.

What's the definition of "forests"?

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Ooh it could be interesting to have extreme areas labeled such as a desert or the mountains

Benagal is in the medium I did not thought that.

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And there is an incredible difference between 0% forest and 20% forest. Using this key, the Sahara would be the same color as much of this map.

This map could used a wider pallet of color.

Ever heard of grass? Nothing wrong with using light green as the base colour that gets darker with higher percentage of forests.

Too many people criticising a perfectly legitimate choice of gradient and shouting hyperboles. Let's be honest, the use of colour is not "ridiculous" even if it's not the most optimal design.

What is misleading about the title? Just the use of "%age"? Because, while I agree with those pointing out that it is not necessary, it is also fairly common. What else was so misleading about the title?

The colours are really not that egregious: quite clearly it is showing that the darker the green, the higher the percentage of trees. Really not "the worst possible way to use colour" but I guess people on the internet love to be outraged.

But an abstraction that makes it harder to read. Making 0-19% brown would make it easier to understand and better show that such a low percentage is a problem

god forbid they have the time to type "percentage". I'm too old for this.

using this color gradient the sahara would be the same color as most of this map

Good job the Sahara isn't an Indian state then...

I doubt you would use the same 20% buckets if you were doing a more global map, doesn't make the colour choice as inherently bad as people are suggesting in the comments.

There is a difference between constructive criticism / feedback and saying "this is the worst possible thing you could do"

Are the darker areas all associated with higher elevation?

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Sorry, poor choice of colors. Stark, but graded (roygbiv or vibgyor) would have worked

Having disjointed colors for a continuous gradation makes no sense

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Are you trying to argue just to disagree with people?

Your right. I'm sorry for expressing an opinion that differs from the popular consensus.

Okay then lets engage:

>Because the colors are just an abstraction. They don't mean that the state is literally that color.

Do you mean that an abstraction has informative value or not?Do you think the color can improve / reduce the user experience?

>Having disjointed colors for a continuous gradation makes no sense

Brown to green is not disjointed. It is representative. It shows bad to good and makes the map readable without the need to compare the color for each area you are looking at.

But the more interesting part now is, which of your opinions do you have? Does the color have information? Or does it not. Because in this point, your comments (seem to) disagree with each other. That is why I asked.

Oh, aren’t they the ones going green???

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Okay, I'll change the word ridiculous to totally misleading, and possibly even fake news.

You're still wrong, it's neither ridiculous nor totally misleading even if it is sub-optimal in the shades of green used. The data is showing forests not general vegetation cover, I think it's perfectly acceptable to have a light green tone for the 0-20% bucket.

Also, happy cake day.

You're the kind of guy who'd put light, medium and dark green on a traffic light.

my point was that calling a map which displays areas similar in forestation to the sahara as green is a bit misleading

More efficient that way. Go, goer, and goest

You and I have different definitions of misleading, I guess. No worries.

Actually this is the correct usage of 'percentage'.

You're supposed to say 'percentage' when you're using it without a numerical value. It's hard to explain, I'll give an example:

>Question: What is the percentage of alcohol in Jack Daniel's?

>Answer: 40 percent

But India has a lot of forest. Its one of countries with most forest.
Its a misconception that India is all urbanized because of the population size.
India is also one of the countries with biodiversity.

i was made for this subreddit

"percent sign % (sometimes per cent sign in British English) is the symbol used to indicate a percentage"

It indicates percentage so you don't need to say percentage.

I still stand by my comment, that it is indeed frustrating and misleading and not a very good use of colours. However, I acknowledge that you did spend time on gathering this data and then charting it out and it takes effort and time for it, so I really do appreciate your work here. I also admit that I should have left more details so here you go:

• The “%age” is misleading because it is ambiguous, that is, if you are referring to it as “percentage” or the “age” of the areas. A reader will have to read it multiple times and look at the legend to correlate what you intend to depict. Hence misleading and frustrating. A chart/visualisation loses value if it’s not intuitive. Drop the “age”
• The use of colours is incorrect for two reasons. First it uses the same gradient all over. This is going to be an accessibility issue. Think about people who have colour blindness. They won’t be able to read your visualisation. There are tools online which help you see image/colours in different types of colour blindness modes. Use them to make your visualisation more accessible. Second, the choice of colour green as a context for areas which do not have any forests in them is misleading. Use of different shades of colours can depict “presence” or “absence” of data points on your visualisation and may help to make the legend self explanatory which enhances your chart.

I hope this helps.

I disagree with you (especially on the colour point), but at least you took the time to make your points constructive. Too many people were just saying "you did the worst job possible" and that is not a helpful way to give feedback.

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Sure, you can choose to disagree, however, I work with UIs and I am pretty sure that everywhere in the industry this colour gradient will be flagged for accessibility issues.

I'm not sure you are correct. I work with GIS (academic not commercial or accessibility related to be fair) but normally the issue with green and shades of green is when it's in contrast with a red or orange shade. That's when colour blind issues come into play.

If this were purely greyscale, you would be able to see each tone fine (although could be tweaked to increase contrast eg lighter green to start and bigger steps) which is the quick test for colourblind problems.