In short: A “histogram” showing the average direction of journeys of all cabs in New York; inside the bar it shows the time of day.
Description: I have gone back and forth on including this. I am not sure this is what I am trying to achieve with the data as it is too close to typical graphing methods; however it has been a useful step to develop from and does have some merit in its own right. The histogram bars directly relate to the direction of travel and using the often-redundant space within each bar to show the distribution of time-of-day gives it a bit more depth. Displaying the data in this manner may look visually different, but on closer inspection it is just a way of combining some already tired methods of data visualization. Regarding the display of data, it is mundane, so it is perhaps only appealing as an object or shape irrespective of what it is trying to show, hence not really living up to what we’re trying to do here. It’s here to set a good benchmark in that respect. 2/10 must try harder.
Point of interest: What this image does show more than the others is the discrete nature of certain kinds of journey, above a background of less-discrete behaviors.
Technical: 6 months of yellow cab trip data for (Jan-Jun 2015) available at https://nycopendata.socrata.com/. A histogram of direction of travel with each bin aligned with the direction the cab has arrived from. The intensity of the color-bars signifies the numbers travelling at this time-of-day.
The Graph Is Dead 