Hannah-Graber-Portfolio
Final Project, Stage 3 (woohoo!)
My process thus far
The beginning (Stage 1)
From the start of idea conception for this project, I knew I wanted to focus on broadband, but the scope became more narrow in some aspects and broader in others.
First, I wanted the focus of my project to be a call for better data as it relates to broadband speed and access. I created a one sentence summary of what I wanted to convey in the project, what I wanted my audience to takeaway, and what I wanted my audience to do:
Using the principles of story design from our textbook, ‘Good Charts Workbook: Tips, Tools, and Exercises for Making Better Data Visualizations’ by Scott Berinato, I started by sketching out a visual “setup,” “conflict,” and “resolution” based on the one-sentence summary and hopes for my audience:
From this initial sketching, I tried to break the visualizations out and develop them further. As you can see from the maps, I started out thinking I was only going to focus on broadband data in Allegheny County, PA rather than the whole state.
In retrospect, my ideas for visualization and calls to action remained the same throughout the project with the change of narrowing the scope of the issue (from better data to increasing broadband speed definitions) and broadening the geography of focus (all of PA instead of only Allegheny County).
If I’m being honest, I felt quite unsure about where my data was going to come from. I have worked with the U.S. Census ACS before and knew I could find information about broadband access there, but the other sources of information were fuzzy. In the end, I used most of the data sources I originally identified, exclusing the Ookla public speedtest data as I ran into issues downloading the data and finding a way to incorporate it into my project. I used the following data sources for my project as I started building out the visualizations in Tableau and Flourish:
- ACS 1-year 2021 Internet and Broadband Access Data (B28011)
- Ookla Speedtesting
- Broadband and the Wisconsin Economy
The middle (Stage 2)
In my next sketches and initial renderings of my visualizations in Flourish, you can see the changes in scope as I attempt to make my message more streamlined. I still mention better data collection–but only briefly–and moved from Allegheny County to all of PA. Here is my initial outlining of the journey I imagined:
And here is the fleshed out storyboard I created from the outline. It’s clear I’m trying out some sort of color scheme (maybe?!) but it doesn’t quite feel aesthetically cohesive:
From the storyboard, I asked three users to tell me their thoughts on their main takeaways, the intended audience, what they’d change, and any questions still remaining. I received some very helpful feedback that I considered as I moved forward in the project process. It was clear I needed to make the pixels graphs more consistent and easy to understand and I finally figured out how to implement my idea in Tableau with minor complications. Finally, I did consider adding an additional visualization exploring other states whose definition of broadband is different than the national 25/3 Mbps definition to appease questions about PA’s strange standard, but the data was very incomplete and contradictory so I decided against it.
In this stage, I also developed a mood board with some images from Unsplash I could use and complementary colors:
The end
In addition to small changes I made as a result of my user interviews and better developing the pixel graphs (described above), I streamlined my narrative to focus on increasing PA speed definitions first, and improving broadband data as a secondary ask (at first). The day before the presentation, I decided a better call to action would be to call for a national standard of broadband rather than improving PA’s speeds as it seemed to tie in both ‘parts’ of my message better (bad data AND slow speed definitions). I plan to briefly touch on how bad data reporting can lead to detrimental effects on providing access to communities that need it most, but that is no longer the thesis of the story. As a result, the audience shifted from policy-makers or advocacy groups to a more general audience of people who live in a state that doesn’t regulate adequate broadband standards for all people.
Across all user interviews, the perspective of my intended audience differed. From these observations, I decided that my audience is ‘general layperson’ in tone and jargon, but the specific examples I use can be tailored to the group I’m speaking to. In this instance, I’m speaking to people who are sitting in Hamburg Hall, but not necessarily policy students sitting in Hamburg Hall. In other words, I keep the jargon and policy-speak light even though I’m presenting to people who do care about marginalized communtiies and understand the nuances of data reporting implications.
Finally, I used my mood board and designated images to create a presentation that was easy to view, hand-picking accent colors and text size. My main color (used for most of the visualizations) was a medium-blue with orange and teal accents pulled from one main image of a computer screen that I particularly like. I played with light and dark themes per Shorthand ‘slide’ to balance out the white of the visualization backgrounds with the images from Unsplash to create a cohesive flow.
So…here it is! Without further ado, please click here to view my final project, Broadband for all? A Call for Amended Broadband Standards in Pennsylvania.