Bringing transparency to international aid for women’s economic empowerment

Publish What You Fund is a non-profit organization ensuring international aid and development data is transparent and available, and actionable.

In October 2020, they launched a project aimed at improving transparency in the financing of women’s economic empowerment, tracking several key indicators. We partenered with them to translate complex findings into clear, engaging visuals, developing a unique artistic direction as well as a visual taxonomy to help navigate the projects’s multilayered data.

The charts show results related to three countries, which are Kenya, Nigeria and Bangladesh. They served as case studies for how well international aid supports women’s economic advancement. 

Set of images of charts developed in the project. In the visual, the images have been placed in a staggered pattern.

Beyond columns and bars: creative data visualization choices

Publish What You Fund brought us a wide variety of datasets, each with their own message. They also requested us to develop a playful and creative approach whenever it was possible.

In order to bring it to life, we explored some unusual types of charts.

For example, we combined treemap and marimekko charts to represent the funding distributions through the categories analyzed by the organization, while emphasizing the three layers of their women economic empowerment framework.

We also made some adjustments to the classic alluvial chart. Instead of being mutually exclusive, multiple projects could be related to various categories.

Two images of charts developed for this project are shown here. The first image is a marimekko chart, which uses stacked bar charts of varying width. The second image is an alluvial chart that links different types of projects to multiple categories.

Before

Image representing the visual of the marimekko chart before the team's revisit. Before being reworked, it took the form of a pie chart.
Two images of charts developed for this project are shown here. The first image is a marimekko chart, which uses stacked bar charts of varying width. The second image is an alluvial chart that links different types of projects to multiple categories.

Before

Image representing the visual of the alluvial chart before the team's revisit. Voilà:'s work consisted of refining it.

A visual identity that’s creative and accessible

One of our client’s wishes was to create a visual identity that would be “playful” and “creative”.

In addition to playing around with different types of charts, we also found that a small change could make a big visual difference: replace sharp corners with rounded ones across all charts. This makes it easier to read information and provides a more refined display.

Composition of 5 images that highlight the visual element of rounded corners in charts. In each of these images, one of the many charts developed for this project was chosen and enlarged to illustrate the use of rounded corners.

Navigating complexity through a visual taxonomy

The complexity of this project comes from the multiple ways of organizing and analyzing the data which is categorized as follows:

  • Three Women Economic Empowerment frameworks (WEE, WEC, WFI);
  • Three countries (Bangladesh, Kenya and Nigeria);
  • Two types of funding (grant, non-grant);
  • Two sources of categorization (OECD vs Publish What you Fund)
  • Two levels of significance (significant, partial).

 

Table that lists all the graphic choices developed for the project in order to clearly organize and analyze the data. It is divided into 4 lines that respectively present the colors chosen for the empowerment frameworks and countries, those for the types of funding, as well as the colors and textures chosen for the sources of categorization and the levels of significance.

To make the complexity more manageable to the reader, we used relevant visual tools:

  • The textures;
  • The small and simple diagrams;
  • The annotations.
3 images representing 3 charts developed during the project. The first image is composed of a small multiples bar chart. The second image is composed of a simple bar chart. The third image is composed of a small multiples column chart. In each of these images, we focus on the combination of textures, colors and context (diagram at the top right), always with the aim of categorizing the data and making them more understandable.

Before

Image representing the visual of a small multiples bar chart before the team's revisit. Before being reworked, it took the form of a small multiples column chart.
3 images representing 3 charts developed during the project. The first image is composed of a small multiples bar chart. The second image is composed of a simple bar chart. The third image is composed of a small multiples column chart. In each of these images, we focus on the combination of textures, colors and context (diagram at the top right), always with the aim of categorizing the data and making them more understandable.

Before

Image representing the visual of a bar chart before the team's revisit. Before being reworked, it took the form of a stacked column chart.
3 images representing 3 charts developed during the project. The first image is composed of a small multiples bar chart. The second image is composed of a simple bar chart. The third image is composed of a small multiples column chart. In each of these images, we focus on the combination of textures, colors and context (diagram at the top right), always with the aim of categorizing the data and making them more understandable.

Before

Image representing the visual of a small multiples column chart before the team's revisit. Before being reworked, it took the form of a line chart.

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