There's more to the composite rating chart

In my previous post, I sketched a set of charts to illustrate composite ratings of maps platforms (e.g. Google Maps, TomTom). Here is the sketch again:

For those readers who are interested in understanding these ratings beyond the obvious, this set of charts has more to offer.

Take a look first at the two charts on the left hand side.

Compare the patterns of dots between the two charts. You should note that the Maps Data ratings (blue dots) are less variable than the Platform ratings (green dots).

For Maps Data, the range is from 30 to 85 (out of 110) but the majority of the dots line up around 50.

For Platform, the range is 20 to 70 (out of 90) and the dots are quite spread out within this range.

This means competitiveness based on Platform is more differentiating among these brands than is Maps Data.

In the previous post, I already noted that the other key insight is that the Maps Data values hang quite closely to the overall average ratings while the Platform values are much less correlated.

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Another informative observation can be found in the bottom row of charts.

The yellow dots (Developer Ecosystem) are mostly to the right of the overall ratings, meaning most of these brands were given scores on Developer Ecosystem that are higher than their average scores.

That is not the case with the green dots (Platform). For this sub-rating, most of the brands score lower than they do in the overall rating.

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None of these insights are readily learned from the stacked column chart. A key skill in data visualization is whether one can pile on insights without overloading the chart.