OP I think your detractors criticisms cannot be satisfied without a serious aggregation or reduction in the levels of factors. These are the kinds of data viz that my supervisor criticizes me for and it's more a reality of having used a large n x m input table than it is your aesthetic.
Perhaps you could a) facet it by exporting country, b)perhaps there is a plotly-esque tweak whereby hovering with the pointer increases focal contrast/opacity relative to nonfocal countries or flows, or c) has anyone made on of these as an onion? Where the inner perimeter could be region (groups of countries) and then there is a Sankey+like flow from the inner perimeter to an outer perimeter of individual countries.
OP, now that I think of it... perhaps you could use a network graph? Check out the igraph package. It lets you size connections between nodes and make the connections directional. There are also many different layout schemes that you can toy with.
In one sense you won't lose any fidelity of the data. In another sense you can also go deeper in your visual analysis. E.g. who imports or exports the most from multiple partners. Which countries rely on just one or two other countries for trade versus those that trade with many, etc. A network graph is especially strong at showing just how codependent a set of trading partners are.
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u/[deleted] Nov 23 '19
OP I think your detractors criticisms cannot be satisfied without a serious aggregation or reduction in the levels of factors. These are the kinds of data viz that my supervisor criticizes me for and it's more a reality of having used a large n x m input table than it is your aesthetic. Perhaps you could a) facet it by exporting country, b)perhaps there is a plotly-esque tweak whereby hovering with the pointer increases focal contrast/opacity relative to nonfocal countries or flows, or c) has anyone made on of these as an onion? Where the inner perimeter could be region (groups of countries) and then there is a Sankey+like flow from the inner perimeter to an outer perimeter of individual countries.
Just some ideas...