0.1 Seconds — Data Visualization poster
Role: Designer & Data Analyst
Team: Solo Project
Project Duration: 3 days
Project Overview
In 2018, my poster was selected as the best data visualization poster for Purdue University Data Visualization Exhibition. This data Vis was developed out of the event theme and the various works presented to be exhibited for the event. In the poster the ‘0.1 seconds’ which the event theme, represents the amount of time it should take for a person to read an effective data vis, the multi-colored lines also show the title of each exhibit, and the colors are inspired by the social context that each work talks about; (social, health, money, and death).
Design Theme
The event's theme was dubbed “ 0.1 Seconds,” drawn from the theory that effective data visualization should take a viewer about 0.1 seconds to recognize. With this theme, I had the challenge to create a compelling data visualization around it.
The Challenge
The main design challenge was to tell a data vis story with themes from the event and the participants' stories while leveraging the contextual meaning of the main theme.
Data Analysis
There were nine exhibitors, three or four of whom had similar topics and themes. I then mapped out the subject matter of all the topics to find the commonality within. Themes drawn from the topics were nature, money, death, social, and health-related. One challenge was that most of the topics overlapped one or more themes. After careful consideration, I chose to match topics with the most simple and identifiable theme so my target audience (university population) could make the inferences.
Limitation
I was limited by the duration of three days for design and critique. My design output was also required to be in a standard print size document (PDF) 11.69 x 16.53 “. However, this design would go on to be expanded into a 50 x 50 in Vinyl print for the backdrop for the show.
Final Solution
I was inspired by many line mapping visualizations to sketched out some ideas after mapping the topics with their themes. Following several critiques from colleagues and iterations, the final version is the visualization seen below. Multiple lines with various size differences are used in this iteration.
Reflection
This project was fun and fulfilling creatively. It helped me develop a lot of storytelling and narrative creation experience as well as how to break down visualizations into print.
Some key takeaways from this project include:
- Data visualization is fun and interesting when employed in environmental design
- Data storytelling needs to be contextual to make sense to the target audience.
- Simplicity is always the best
- We can learn a lot about the impact of visualization when you print and feel
