Which Country has the Best Economy?

When I was researching about my three (four) countries, I learned some things about their economies.  For instance, when researching about Japan, I found out that their country isn't as good as their country makes it seem.  I also used this country for my life expectancy project, and their life expectancy was one of the highest in the world, because they have good food, clean cities, and healthy habits.  However, their economy isn't as good as their life expectancy, not by a longshot.  Their unemployment rate is low, but their GNP per capita is low as well.  Their inflation rate is high, and their only natural resource is fish.  The lack of natural resources make Japan the #1 importer of coal, and the #2 importer of natural gas/oil in the world.  These things make Japan the worst economy out of all my countries.  I also learned that Australia isn't as good as I thought it was.  Before this project, I thought Australia was great and perfect (which sound absurd), but I now realize that they are quite average, most of it.  The GNP per capita is about 50 thousand US Dollars, and that is one of the highest in the world, but the rest of it is normal for a developed country.  I also learned some interesting things about Canada, like that it has 10% of the world's forest, and it has many natural resources.  It's GNP per capita is 8,000 below Australia, but that's okay, because that number is still high.

Not only have I learned about economies, but I also learned about infographics.  Every set of data has the right layout that can be put it in for maximum efficiency.  If it is found, the data will be easy to interpret and will flow smoothly.  Unfortunately, I tried to find it, and failed.  My data wasn't super easy to read.  There is also an order to the slides, which I also didn't get right.  My slides were in order at the beginning, but towards the end, it became confusing.  I think this infographic was better in terms of looks, but my first one made more sense in terms of order of slides.  Also, my first infographic was easier, because I only had to focus on one data point and give reasons why, while on this one I had much more data, and I had to explain what they would influence.  I also had to evaluate the economies of my countries, which was also challenging.  Putting evaluations is difficult in an  infographic, because the explanation cannot use many words.  I used arrows pointing up and down to signify high or low standards, but it didn't really convey the message to the audience.  The way an infographic is presented makes a difference as well.  If they ins't presented smoothly, or if the presenter uses a lot of 'um's, the audience won't understand what the infographic is trying to tell them.  Also, generic words like "good" or "bad" shouldn't be overused.  I used them to much, and I could see the confusion on my audience's faces.  I have a lot to improve on when it comes to making and presenting infographics.  If I were to pick a core value for this project, I would chose risk taker, because I took a risk by not practicing the presentation, and it really hurt me.  In the past, I never practiced presentations, but it would be a good idea to do so in the future, so I don't suffer otherwise.

An important part of infographics, charts, presentation, broadcasting, and writing newspapers, is making information interesting, and capturing people's attention.  This can be achieved in multiple ways.  All these forms of catching someone's eye are easy to understand, and look nice.  To gain attention, use size, shape, color, and number.  Use size to show how much more of something there is than something else, or how much bigger.  For instance, if someone is trying to compare two numbers, 3 and 9, two circles could be used, one three times bigger than the other.  If the size of two fishes are being compared, two fish icons could be used, and then expanded until they are to scale with one another, corresponding with the sizes of the fish.  Shape can be used as a sort of key, to tell the difference from one thing to another.  If someone is making a diagram explaining the cause of death during the atomic bomb strike in Japan, they could made a code, for example, hexagon is death by initial explosion, triangle is death from heat, square is death my shockwave, octagon is death by cancer, star is death by radiation sickness, rhombus is death by crippling mutilation, and circle is death by other cause.  They could put all the shapes together in different quantities to show how much more of each type of death there was, and the shapes would help tell the difference between them.  Color can be very useful, especially in maps or in instances where the data changes progressively.  On a map, temperature can be expressed by colors, with the bluest blue being extremely cold, and the reddest red being extremely hot.  All the colors in the middle of those two can be all the temperatures in between.  The same concept can be applied to many different kinds of maps, like elevation, population density, and much more.  Color can also be used as a key, to tell the different between climates in maps.  The can also make text, graphs and images look more intriguing and make people want to look at them.  Number can be used in the same fashion as the example for shape.  Showing differences in number makes it easy to see the contrast, or the similarities of data.  For example, showing different using numbers like 1, 2, 3, aren't interesting.  However, if someone put that many of different shapes, people will be more intrigued and will want to look at it.  I hope to apply all these methods into future presentations.