[wdmmg-discuss] Number of digits for money amounts in dashboard etc

Fri Jun 11 12:56:18 UTC 2010

+1. ;-)

Agree that it would be nice to adopt roughly adopt the same kinds of
numerical breakdowns a newspaper would use (3.4bn not 3.41 bn?) --
with hover over for exact amount.

J

On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 6:46 PM, David Jones <david.jones at okfn.org> wrote:
> Some of the money amounts displayed by the dashboard use 4 digits (EG "The
> Environment: £4894mn").  None use decimal points.
>
> I think the display should use at most 3 digits.  And therefore a decimal
> point should be used.
>
> So 4.89bn rather than 4894mn.
>
> I note I'm not alone in thinking some of this: See
> http://www.wheredoesmymoneygo.org/comments/dashboard/#comment-257
>
> In fact, I think 4.89bn is a bit too cluttered, and 4.9bn would be better.
>  Besides, it's not like anyone believes more than the first digit or so,
> right?
>
> So my rules for displaying an amount are:
>
> - Choose whichever of million or billion (or presumably thousand, trillian,
> etc) makes the integer part, when rounded, 3 digits or fewer;
> - if the integer part has 3 digits, just use that;
> - otherwise (the integer part has 1 or 2 digits), add a decimal point and
> one digit after the decimal point.
>
> So:
>
> 4.9bn
> 489mn
> 48.9mn
> 4.9mn
>
> There is a corner case in the first part: 999,700,000 should be 1.0bn not
> 1000mn (hence the "when rounded" in the above rules).
>
> The hover over balloon could easily display more detail if needed.
>
> What do other people think?
>
> drj
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-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
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