Using Linked Micromaps for Evidence-Based Policy

Oregon Convention Center 

Linked micromaps were developed to display geographically indexed statistics in an intuitive way by linking them to a sequence of small maps. The approach integrates several visualization design principles, such as small multiples, discrete color indexing, and ordering. Linked micromaps allow for other types of data displays that are connected to geography, including scatterplots, boxplots, time series plots, confidence intervals, and more. Initial applications of micromaps used data from the National Cancer Institute and the Environmental Protection Agency. In this presentation, we will show how linked micromaps can be used to better understand and explore relationships and distributions of statistics linked to US states and DC. We will compare linked micromaps with other popular data displays, such as bubble charts, choropleth maps, and bar charts. We will illustrate how linked micromaps can be used for evidence-based decision-making using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (e.g., Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics) and the Census Bureau (e.g., Building Permits Survey, Community Resilience Estimates).