The data visualization shows veteran suicide rates, by state. Strengths: Each state is represented by the same-sized square, making effective comparisons between states of wildly different geographic areas. The color coding is intuitive and the legend is clear. Weakness: The hover interactivity adds more detail, but offsetting the state is distracting because it blocks the nearby data.

The bar charts below offers additional information by ranking each state, though the color scheme may confuse some readers who may try to make a connection with the map colors. The second bar chart would work better as a stacked chart to show proportions of veterans and civilian suicides of the total.

Tracking Veteran Suicides, from News21 2013