A Summer with the Data Academy
Data is becoming an increasingly important tool in all areas of industry. As a student interested in the potential of data, I learned related skills at UCLA that I was eager to implement and learn more about in a real-world context. This summer, I got the opportunity to get involved with the Data Academy at the City of LA’s Mayor’s office. This initiative was created to connect students who are interested in data science to different departments within the City of LA. The Data Academy aimed to incorporate data-driven strategies into the city government and give these student interns the opportunity to apply their skills to influence public policy in Los Angeles. By hiring interns for the program, the Data Academy not only helped young students learn more about what impact their skills could have, but also exposed new perspectives and fresh voices to departments across the city.
Other interns at the Data Academy were placed at various departments around the city, all focused on using data for various tasks including information collection, data-analysis, and geo-mapping. I was personally interested in using data to provide users with information in an accessible and appealing way and was tasked to redesign the Bureau of Engineering’s public-facing project reporting tool. With the help of many mentors and peers around the city, I went from a basic understanding of web design and programming to implementing a complete web application displaying all the active public engineering projects in Los Angeles.
Here are a few of the things I accomplished along the way:
Storytelling
The concept of data-driven approaches can seem just about going through endless spreadsheets or hours of processing numbers, but behind the numbers, there’s a story. I was given the opportunity to tell that story with the data I was given at the Bureau of Engineering (BOE).
Living in Los Angeles has it’s challenges — most residents will agree that the sheer amount of people and things happening is impossible to keep track of. It is difficult to get the public engaged in local politics if they don’t see what their city government is doing for them. The goal of this project was to further bridge that gap and provide a way for the public to explore what the Bureau of Engineering was doing around the city and in their neighborhood. I set off on my project to not only display reports for the projects that BOE is working on, but also encourage exploration and engagement with what BOE is doing in the city and allow transparency regarding how the department is using their resources.
With this in mind I created 3 goals to work on:
- Connect the application back to the user — allow them to see what’s happening in their own neighborhood
- Make it easy to navigate and understand for someone who doesn’t have a background in construction or government.
- Make it fun to explore to encourage users to find out more.
User Interface Design
Human beings naturally understand certain visual cues and elements in navigating their environment, and this is no different for digital environments. Understanding how to make something that is intuitive to this visual language can be a tricky thing, but thinking about what the ‘typical’ user would want and what would make the website easy and fun for them is a good start.
The previous design of BOE’s website did not make it obvious that it is meant for public use. Many technical terms were used without much explanation or information given to the user regarding what the site is about or how to navigate it. To remedy this, I started by researching similar sites and began to sketch out my ideas.
These sketches allowed me to better understand the flow of the website and how it could be improved. After getting an idea of what functions I wanted the website to serve, I began coming up with ideas about how to go about executing those functions. The next step was to decide a clear visual style.
After a few times of trying to come up with a perfect design right away, I quickly learned that designing is an iterative process. This means that good design requires a lot time spent refining and adjusting details before settling on something that is just right. In the end, I decided on a visual style that was clean but used a bold yellow to direct the attention of the user to important areas of the site.
After settling on a visual style, I tackled some major changes regarding the layout of the site. I decided to add more intuitive search options including an interactive map as well as a cleaner, more usable project display.
Web Development
After creating the initial design of the site, I began to build fully flushed-out static webpages. I then focused on making these pages interactive and responsive to the user in order to provide important cues whenever they click or hover over important elements.
The last step required to make this web application functional was to connect the front end design with the BOE database that stores all the information about their public projects.
In Conclusion
By the end of the summer, I had created a fully functional application that was easier to navigate and understand than the original one. Along the way, I learned a tremendous amount from my experiences.
- I learned the importance of a cooperative environment — hearing about the other interns’ progress was not only eye-opening, but often helpful for my own project. Learning from each other helped to bridge the gaps between our projects and departments.
- I learned the importance of flexibility throughout any process of creation and was constantly challenged to try new ideas and approaches as I progressed through my internship.
- I learned about the responsibility that comes with understanding and displaying data. The Data Academy introduced me to many different ways that data-driven policies are being implemented around city. From this, I was able to understand how data provides an important empirical basis for policies and how it can often reveal information that would otherwise be hidden. However, it can also be used to influence people’s understanding of the facts. This taught me the importance of accuracy and honesty in every step of the data analysis process.
Overall, my experience allowed me to recognize that because humans often function narratively, creating a story out of data can be a powerful tool to promote transparency and accessibility.
