I haven't had as much time to get into the course this week in terms of making illustrations, or even any helpful criticism of my chosen graphic. There was a lot to read and watch - the general theme was on what forms to use for visualization and how to use knowledge about vision perception to shape design choices for the benefit of the user. The graphics to critique this week were interactive, which raised the slight problem (for me at any rate, and only for the two that I looked at!) that they didn't necessarily have the aim of being pieces of journalism (and journalism is the overriding theme of the course, as far as I can tell) and hence it was hard to know whether it was fair to make criticisms or not. Nevertheless for the fascinating graphic of Small Arms and Ammunition - Imports & Exports [Caution, needs Chrome], I thought that given it's not a graphic pretending to be ready for print on a newspaper website but purely a data exploration tool (in my opinion), it is very functional, but doesn't tell a story. Which of course is a pity because after only playing with it for a short time I can see there are a few stories in there.

In terms of missing data, I was asking myself why do the UK and USA spend more on arms imports than they gain in exports when they are both big arms producers (and in the UK's case historically very good at subsidising their own arms industry). But then I realized the numbers for internal purchase of arms (which are neither import or export) are not there. It would have been nice to have those.

I found that the dots along the lines took aways from the functionality as I couldn't see other stuff clearly. I also would have appreciated only seeing one country label at a time.

Overall, I found the graphic useful and informative. I don't think it should be judged according to the the normal infographics/journalism criteria, as I don't think that's what the author(s) were aiming for. But if we do apply those criteria, there are many criticisms that could be made.