Day 24 Blog June – Data visualisation and Brexit

Oh my god, UK what have you done? I thought the Brexit vote may be close but not in favour of leaving the EU.

I must say I have never lived in the UK, and, myself, my parents and grandparents were not born there NOR do I usually have an interest in politics (altough this is changing the older I get) BUT I did really get into watching the result of the UK referendum today.

I think this was in part due to the great use of data visualisations to reveal the referendum results. I mainly stuck to the BBC website but The Guardian also had great infographics (and more details by demographics). As a visual person it was much easier to see the result as colours on a map and colours on a half circle than words and numbers alone. Watching the map of the UK change from white to blue and yellow had me glued to my computer for the day.

BBC UK EU Result at 1.08pm AEST 24-06-2016

BBC UK EU Result at 1.08pm AEST 24-06-2016

BBC UK EU Result Map at 1.08pm AEST 24-06-2016

BBC UK EU Result Map at 1.08pm AEST 24-06-2016

I hope we continue to see data visualisation used to document the results of elections and referendums in the future. It certainly makes politics more interesting to me.