“Visualisation gives you answers to questions you didn’t know you had.”~ Ben Schneiderman
Data Visualisation is representing large datasets in such a way that it conveys a story and makes it easier for the audience to interpret and understand. For this data visualisation project we were provided with a dataset from National Family and Health Survey conduction in 2016 and 2019 (NFHS-4 & 5). We were supposed to read, understand and identify interesting trends from that dataset and represent it in our visualisation.
I started the process of my data visualisation by going through the huge NFHS dataset, reading the different variables in the data dictionary, understanding the meaning and significance of each variable by going through several articles. Thereafter, I started establishing relationships between the different variables, framing questions and creating graphs on excel to identify interesting trends.
Finally, I decided to represent the data of child immunisation in India in 2019 (NFHS- 5). I wanted to depict “ the impact of immunisation on child health” through my data visualisation. Thus, i compared the percentage of fully immunised children (age 12–13 months) in every state of India and the status of child health in that particular state. The variables that I used for the data visualisation were children (under 5 years) who are stunted, children (under 5 years) who are wasted, children (under 5 years) who are severely wasted, children (under 5 years) who are underweight, children (under 5 years) who are anemic and full immunisation of children age 12–23 months. After deciding the variables, I started creating basic graphs on excel, ideating and creating rough sketches of different types of graphs which can be used to represent the dataset.
After deciding the form and graph I created them digitally using the data of several different states to check if the idea is working out and representing the data accurately. Out of all the ideations I selected the one which represented the data accurately and looked visually appealing for the final deliverable.
In the final visualisation I used elements, forms and shapes that would represent the topic i.e immunisation. I have used circles to depict the word ‘tikakaran’ which is the hindi translation of immunisation. I have used the colour blue to depict immunisation and shades of orange to depict malnourishment disorders. The length of the line represents the percentage of fully immunised children (12–13 months) in that state. Thus, longer the line higher the percentage of children who are fully immunised in that state. The states have been arranged in descending order of the child population under the age of 5 (from left to right). The radius of the concentric circles represent the percentage of children who are anemic, stunted, underweight, wasted and severely wasted respectively. Through this visualisation it can be observed that states with higher percentage of fully immunised children (age 12–13 months) have considerably lower percentage of children suffering from these malnourishment disorders. Thus, showing that immunisation has a positive impact on the child health and it plays an important role in improving the status of child health in the state.
Thus, through this project I learnt the importance of simplifying and representing data and numbers through visuals that convey a story because without a story, numbers on an excel sheet are of no use.