The information design should:
- Demonstrate the appreciation of the complexity of an issue
- Offer a simpler path/story into the issue/data
- Identifying a message for change
- Communicate a message convincingly
Inspiration
This week I began researching for my final project, a multi touch information graphic.
I started by looking at past examples from students. I really liked two designs in particular: "Meat Consumption" by Mitch Gee and "Religion in Australia" by Luke Robertson.
I like this infographic because it's clean and simple and really easy to understand. His pictograms instantly make sense so there's no confusion. A subject like meat consumption would also be a good one as I'm sure there would be plenty of data about it.
I also like this infograph, for the same reasons as the first. I think simplicity is really important when your trying to display data and this was clear and concise.
To start the ball rolling on my brain storming I wanted to know what the most asked questions in the world are...or at least most frequently entered in Google. The questions were:
Weight loss products:
I haven't got much of an idea yet, but I was thinking about an info graphic similar to snake oil but focused on weight loss methods. What is scientifically proven, what isn't, what has potential to cause health problems and how much revenue is generated from each item. I think it would be useful as how often do you turn the television on and see a new add for a 'rapid-quick-super-fast-mirracle-detox-shake' that guarantees you'll lose 10 kilos a day or a new 'ab king pro' type machine.
Growing rate of Atheism:
Another idea I had after looking at these questions is the rapidly growing rate of atheists. Today most people have the ability to question religion as opposed to 50 years ago when going to church on Sunday was the norm. Both my parent's families were active church goers until my parents left home. Myself and my siblings however were never made to go to church and not many of my friends did either. I started to think about this a while ago after watching an interview with 'Family Guy' creator Seth Macfarlane and Bill Maher who described the 'athiest movement' as 'gaining credibility of late' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3pExZs9IJA. I was thinking of doing an infographic showing the growth of atheism in different countries over the last 50 years.
Final Idea
"Smoking and Cancer rates"
After researching my first two ideas I found there was not enough information on the weight loss product idea and I though the atheism idea would be hard to design for.
After further consideration I have decided to do a multi touch information graphic on smoking as it would have lots of info and lends itself to simple graphics. At first I was going to do a graphic that displayed mortality rates against the smoking rate in that country, however with countries such as Africa AIDS would skew the results so I have decided to compare the rate of cancer in that country.
I haven't yet decided how I'm going to present my information.
First Layout Idea:
An initial idea was to divide the data into two categories, 'smoking' and 'non-smoking' which would show the healthiest countries against the worst. I was going to show these as a pair of lungs, one side healthy the other side unhealthy, and have the countries listed on them. When the countries were clicked they would display the cancer rate and smoking rate.
For example:
While I like this idea my concern is that it doesn't represent the data itself. I also though I could have more info, like much the average pack of cigarettes is worth in a certain country given the tax on cigarettes in Australia.
Second Layout Idea:
My second concept was to represent the rate of smoking in a population in a cigarette pack. For example, the percentage of smokers is represented as cigarettes, e.g. if the pack was full, all the population would smoke. However I'm not sure how to represent cancer rates... yet.
perhaps I could represent the cancer rates as the white part of the cigarette...
After looking at both design possibilities I have decided to go with the first as I think it works better on a touch screen. However, I think the second can be combined with the first to strengthen the design.
Refinement
I changed the first idea slightly so that the country names were shown in bubbles, the bigger the bubbles the bigger the cancer population.
Interface Design: My main goal for the graphic was to keep the design simple. For this reason I kept my page layout basic, with a simple heading, the graphic and a legend. I think the design is pretty easy to use and understand.
Response to brief: I feel my graphic effectively meets the objectives outlined at the start of the project. My data has been displayed in a way that is simple to understand yet can effectively convey information. However most importantly the information graphic shows what I hoped it would. That the countries with the highest cancer rates are also those with the highest smoking rates (with only minor exceptions). I would hope that this information would be convincing enough for people to stop smoking.
Reflection: I am happy with the end product of my designs. However, if I were to do the information graphic again there is a few things I would change. Firstly, I would space out the 'bubbles' from each other so that the names of the countries would not over lap.
I started by looking at past examples from students. I really liked two designs in particular: "Meat Consumption" by Mitch Gee and "Religion in Australia" by Luke Robertson.
I like this infographic because it's clean and simple and really easy to understand. His pictograms instantly make sense so there's no confusion. A subject like meat consumption would also be a good one as I'm sure there would be plenty of data about it.
To start the ball rolling on my brain storming I wanted to know what the most asked questions in the world are...or at least most frequently entered in Google. The questions were:
- "What is the meaning of life?"
- "Is there a god?"
- "Will I get laid tonight?"
- "Why is there suffering and Death?"
- "Is there life on other planets?"
- "Which are better dogs or cats?"
- "How can I lose weight ad keep it off?"
- "Do I have a soulmate?"
- "When is the world coming to an end?"
- "Why do men lose their hair?"
Weight loss products:
I haven't got much of an idea yet, but I was thinking about an info graphic similar to snake oil but focused on weight loss methods. What is scientifically proven, what isn't, what has potential to cause health problems and how much revenue is generated from each item. I think it would be useful as how often do you turn the television on and see a new add for a 'rapid-quick-super-fast-mirracle-detox-shake' that guarantees you'll lose 10 kilos a day or a new 'ab king pro' type machine.
Growing rate of Atheism:
Another idea I had after looking at these questions is the rapidly growing rate of atheists. Today most people have the ability to question religion as opposed to 50 years ago when going to church on Sunday was the norm. Both my parent's families were active church goers until my parents left home. Myself and my siblings however were never made to go to church and not many of my friends did either. I started to think about this a while ago after watching an interview with 'Family Guy' creator Seth Macfarlane and Bill Maher who described the 'athiest movement' as 'gaining credibility of late' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3pExZs9IJA. I was thinking of doing an infographic showing the growth of atheism in different countries over the last 50 years.
Concerns:
My concern for this project is that it has a heavy flash element, which I am not very familiar with. For this reason I will try to keep my idea simple and achievable.
Final Idea
"Smoking and Cancer rates"
After researching my first two ideas I found there was not enough information on the weight loss product idea and I though the atheism idea would be hard to design for.
After further consideration I have decided to do a multi touch information graphic on smoking as it would have lots of info and lends itself to simple graphics. At first I was going to do a graphic that displayed mortality rates against the smoking rate in that country, however with countries such as Africa AIDS would skew the results so I have decided to compare the rate of cancer in that country.
I haven't yet decided how I'm going to present my information.
Smoking rates:
ERC. (2007). World Cigarettes 1: The 2007 Report. ERC Statistics Intl PIc. Population data is from Central Intelligence Agency. (2007). The World Factbook 2007. Washington: Government Printing Office.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_cigarette_consumption_per_capita this table was sourced from a website I can no longer access for some reason.
As you can see there are any sources available for this data. I have not yet reduced it down which I will do by using only the most reliable and recent. So far my favorite sources has been nationsmaster.com (http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph/hea_tob_tot_adu_smo-health-tobacco-total-adult-smokers&b_map=1) as there are options on how to display the data which is helpful as it is easier to understand.
Data sources:
Cancer rates by country:
First Layout Idea:
An initial idea was to divide the data into two categories, 'smoking' and 'non-smoking' which would show the healthiest countries against the worst. I was going to show these as a pair of lungs, one side healthy the other side unhealthy, and have the countries listed on them. When the countries were clicked they would display the cancer rate and smoking rate.
For example:
While I like this idea my concern is that it doesn't represent the data itself. I also though I could have more info, like much the average pack of cigarettes is worth in a certain country given the tax on cigarettes in Australia.
Second Layout Idea:
My second concept was to represent the rate of smoking in a population in a cigarette pack. For example, the percentage of smokers is represented as cigarettes, e.g. if the pack was full, all the population would smoke. However I'm not sure how to represent cancer rates... yet.
perhaps I could represent the cancer rates as the white part of the cigarette...
After looking at both design possibilities I have decided to go with the first as I think it works better on a touch screen. However, I think the second can be combined with the first to strengthen the design.
Refinement
I changed the first idea slightly so that the country names were shown in bubbles, the bigger the bubbles the bigger the cancer population.
When a country is clicked it will show the cancer rate and smoking rate of that country.
The cancer rate is represented here by cancer cells. I don't yet know if I will use this design in the final as it's hard to tell what they are given people don't really know what they look like.
I am happy however with the representation of the smoking population as it is easier the understand. I designed the pictogram around the Marlboro packet because it is widely recognized. The percentage of smokers is also shown in the amount of cigarettes in the pack.
After discussions with Dave I have decided to alter the design so that it better represents the data. I have decided to represent the smoking population by placing the highest near the 'black' lung and the lowest near the healthiest. The rate of cancer will dictate the size of the bubble.
I have decided to use the template from Dave's week 7 tutorial to resize the bubbles. What I haven't decided yet is how I am going to add the other information that will appear when a 'bubble' is pressed.
Final Designs: These are the final designs for the multi touch info graphic.
I decided to have the cells green as people don't really know what cancer cells look like, but hopefully do know what cells look like. I made them green so that it is obvious the cells are unhealthy.
The cigarette pack I have left the same. However after beginning on my final project I have decided to leave the cigarette pack as full because I felt I didn't have the technical ability to do my original idea.
I have also decided to add a male vs. female cigarette consumption pictogram.
Final Mockup:
Although I think my pictograms are clear I still included a legend to eliminate any confusion. My graphic will appear differently every time it is loaded due to the Math.random command in the code. I like this element as I feel it's relevant to cancer and keeps the design from being stale as each person will see differently arranged data. I feel the design is pretty straightforward. Incase people didn't understand the scale of most vs. least smokers, I added the detail at the bottom just incase.
Link to final graphic here.
Response to brief: I feel my graphic effectively meets the objectives outlined at the start of the project. My data has been displayed in a way that is simple to understand yet can effectively convey information. However most importantly the information graphic shows what I hoped it would. That the countries with the highest cancer rates are also those with the highest smoking rates (with only minor exceptions). I would hope that this information would be convincing enough for people to stop smoking.
Reflection: I am happy with the end product of my designs. However, if I were to do the information graphic again there is a few things I would change. Firstly, I would space out the 'bubbles' from each other so that the names of the countries would not over lap.
