Data-Visualization-Portfolio

Part II: Final Project

Storyboard 📜

User research and interviews 🎙️

1. Target audience

My target audience includes young, tech-savvy folks who spend hours in front of the screen, be it playing games, working on the computer from 9-5, or constantly texting their best friend.

I aim to inform these users about the negative impact of excessive digital exposure and seek to persuade them to unplug devices and enjoy the world around them.

2. Approach to identifying representative individuals to interview

Coming from a CS undergrad background, most of my friends or colleagues are heavy tech users.

But to diversify the interview responses based on their usage patterns, I chose to interview:

a social media influencer who can never miss an update online,
a gaming enthusiast, and
a programmer who is glued to the laptop for nearly the whole day.

3. Interview script

Context:

❓ Do you track your social media usage?
💬 Helpful Direct Quote: “Only for Instagram, not for other apps.”

Audience:

❓ Who do you think is the intended audience for this?
💬 Helpful Direct Quote: “Young people who are glued to their screens all day long.”

Content:

❓ Was the content clear to follow?
💬 Helpful Direct Quote: “Yes. Smooth flow of content.”

Takeaways:

❓ What was your key takeaway?
💬 Helpful Direct Quote: “Social media apps are created to draw the user’s attention and keep them engaged. Awareness about this is on the rise.”
❓ Is there anything you find surprising or confusing?
💬 Helpful Direct Quote: “We don’t realize that a few minutes every now and then can amount to 3.25 hours a day, which translates to 44% of our awake time.”

Visuals:

❓ Did the charts help to grasp the information presented?
💬 Helpful Direct Quote: “Yes. The charts were interesting!”
❓ Did the visuals evoke a strong reaction?
💬 Helpful Direct Quote: “The visuals were in-line with the content.”
❓ Were the colors chosen thoughtfully?
💬 Helpful Direct Quote: “The color scheme matched the theme of the content. Extremely coherent and not too distracting.”
❓ Is there anything you would change or do differently?
💬 Helpful Direct Quote: “I would like to read and learn more information about the data presented and see more call-to-action items to control my screen time.”

✍️ Click to see the List of Interview Responses.

4. Findings from the interviews

Similarities

The interviewees shared similar thoughts as me regarding the audience for this data visualization being youngsters who spend most of their time in front of screens.
They thought the charts, visuals, and color scheme aligned well with the content theme.

Differences

One of them had the same takeaway as the call-to-action. The other interviewee focused more on the data and had a new insight.

What patterns in the feedback emerge?

They found the visuals interesting, which kept them engaged all throughout. The relevance of the topic to them was primal.

What did you learn from the feedback?

The color scheme I chose worked well in keeping the audience intrigued.
The images, apart from the charts, aid in engaging the audience.
Exciting statistics in the chart can help in causing a lasting impact on the audience and can help in persuasion.
One of the interviewees was interested in reading more about the data depicted and more call-to-action items.

5. Changes I plan on implementing to my visualizations to address the issues identified

Adjusting tool-tip format

Currently the tool tip format is causing the text to go outside the screen area which is not ideal. I will be modifying this using Tableau.

More narrative text

Since this was a draft storyboard, I hadn’t added much narrative text. However, I plan on including that in Part III with the help of my research this week. One of my initial ideas for this is the introduction of some of my key takeaways from a research paper about nomophobia or no mobile phone phobia.

More call-to-action items

I also plan to include more call-to-action items.

In-class Peer Feedback

What worked? 😁

The elements of the story were highlighted well with supporting charts and visuals.
The storyboard has a clean aesthetic.

What didn’t work? 😟

Because the position of the map wasn’t fixed, the highlighted text was outside the boundaries of the visualization.
The notification charts should be re-positioned to improve the flow of the storyboard. It could be displayed right before I move into explaining the negative impact of excessive screen time.
They would like to see Data points about the negative effects of phone addiction along with the displayed text.

What questions came up? 🤔

They were wondering if any research paper data could support my statements about an increase in level of exhaustion with an increase in phone usage.

What new inspiration arose? ✨

Since the group wanted me to look into more research paper findings and add more charts, I plan on doing so to enhance the storyboard.

Changes I made 🖌

Fixed the position of the map to ensure the highlighted textbox stays within the boundaries of the visualization.

I re-ordered the elements of the storyboard to improve the flow based on the in-class peer feedback. I found this suggestion particularly useful.
I chose to not include charts for the negative effects of phone addiction due to lack of research paper data in this area.