_______________________ Reported By NSW 2015 - 2020
Data Source: COVID-19 Pandemic and crime
trends in NSW Reported By
NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research
_______________
Design: Crazy Vegetable --------------------------------------------- This viz project focuses on one crime
category: non-domestic
violence-related assaults
in NSW from Jan 2015 to Apr 2020. We create a circular heat map to visualize the density of crime cases by which
target audiences can quickly grasp the monthly and seasonal distribution of crime and possibly take some
precautionary measures.
For the
detailed design process, please
refer
to
Average Data By
Year
As audiences can hardly compare the crime incidents between different years in the circular heat map, we
calculated the average number of Non-DV Related Assaults per year and presented it in a graphical way by combining
lines and numerical information. This gives audiences a clear insight into the average crime numbers and trends in
these six years.
_____________________ ________________ Main
Story Why Circular Heat
Map? The rich colours and
vivid information expressions in the
heat map can make the visualization interesting and grab audiences' attention easily.
Besides, the raw data shows an apparent monthly and seasonal distribution, so we use a circular heat map to make
this distribution more visible, as users can quickly see the spatial distribution of data through the lightness
changes. There was an overall
increase in the
average
number of
non-domestic
violence-related assaults from 593 cases per week in
2015 to 621 cases in 2019, despite the slight decrease in 2018.
There was a seasonal pattern in the number of non-domestic violence-related assaults. The figure for this crime
category
was comparatively lower from June to September (winter) and higher from November to March (summer).
During the Covid-19 period (15 March to 26 April 2020), the number of non-domestic violence-related assaults
decreased
dramatically and reached the lowest level at 320 on 19 April 2020.
_____________________ ________________ Visual Encodings
In the data sorting
process, we first
classify the data by year. Each year's data is divided into 12 sections by month
and then broken down and presented weekly. Position &
Size
X Axis: Month (Ordinal Data)
Y Axis: Year (Nominal Data)
Z Axis: Non-DV Related Assaults (Quantitative Ratio Data)
Rectangles with different widths are used to indicate the number and variation of incidents per week.
Orientation & Shape
Rectangles stand for weekly crime data. They form a circle to present the annual data. These circles for each year
are
arranged in chronological order from the inside out.
Scale
Linear scale is used to define the width of each rectangle in the circular heat map, and ordinal scale with
lightness
changes are used to define the range of data values.
Value, Hue, Color
Colour differences are used to provide audiences with better visual cues. As data of each year is presented as
nominal
data, we use the hue sequence from red in 2015 to purple in 2020 to make each annual category distinguishable. As
the
number of Non-DV related assaults is quantitative ratio data, the difference in lightness between dark and light
is
chosen to show the criminal incidents from high to low.
Finally, the incidents are presented by the combination of hue and lightness to indicate the density of incidents
within
an annual and monthly category.