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Final Project Part 2
Cailin De Zeeuw
Due 11/30
Wireframes and Storyboarding
The current draft of my data story with wireframe data visualizations can be previewed on Shorthand.
User Research
Target Audience
The target audience for my presentation includes organizational leaders doing mission-driven work on a local scale. This could include non-profit directors, government workers, local officials, small business owners, etc. Any person with organizational influence who is interested in bettering their community, and the world, might be interested in my presentation.
User Interviews
To gain useful feedback from interviews, I first had to identify individuals who are at least somewhat representative of my target audience. I was able to find three individuals representing the public health field, the energy sector, and the medical field. I was happy to have diverse representation from different industries; however, my interviewees were not diverse in age. To get a more representative sample of my target audience, I would need to interview individuals with greater experience in professional leadership roles, who are also likely to be older. However, I was limited by my access to willing participants and the relatively short time span available to conduct sufficient interviews.
Interview Script
Once I identified interviewees, I was able to conduct interviews using a pre-defined script that aligns my goals and questions:
| Objective | Question |
|---|---|
| Define chart’s main message. | - Can you tell me what this chart is saying? |
| - What is the main point of this chart? | |
| Identify usefulness | - How could you use this information? |
| - How does this connect to your work? | |
| Name any confusion | - What was most confusing about this chart? |
| - What changes would you make? |
Interview #1
My first user interviewee fit the following demographics:
- Male
- International student
- 26 years old
- PhD student
- Energy sector
- Note: some experience with the SDGs
Summary of interview feedback:
| Question | Response |
|---|---|
| - Can you tell me what this chart is saying? | - He could identify the main concept of most charts. |
| - What is the main point of this chart? | - He struggled to identify trends and the main messages stemming from trends. |
| - How could you use this information? | - It isn’t immediately apparent to him how this data corresponds with his work, but he learned more about how the SDGs |
| - How does this connect to your work? | could be a useful perspective to incorporate in his work. |
| - What was most confusing about this chart? | - For most charts, he pointed out where labeling could be improved for better clarity. |
| - What changes would you make? | - For the Brookings analysis chart, he wondered why some indicators were not included |
Interview #2
My second user interviewee shared many characteristics with the first:
- Male
- American
- 26 years old
- PhD student
- Public health field
- Note: No experience with the SDGs
Summary of interview feedback:
| Question | Response |
|---|---|
| - Can you tell me what this chart is saying? | - The main ideas are interpretable for the most part. |
| - What is the main point of this chart? | - Hard to tell what the CMU chart is saying. |
| - How could you use this information? | - As a PhD student, it’s interesting to him to see how a University evaluates its activities with this framework. |
| - How does this connect to your work? | - His academic work in public health connects to some SDGs, and he had been previously unaware. |
| - What was most confusing about this chart? | - For the CMU chart: why are those top four points there? |
| - What changes would you make? | - Suggested adjustments to symbol size and labeling. |
Interview #3
My third user interviewee had the following characteristics:
- Female
- American
- 27 years old
- University faculty
- Medical field
- Note: No experience with the SDGs
Summary of interview feedback:
| Question | Response |
|---|---|
| - Can you tell me what this chart is saying? | - Main concept was immediately apprent for the first chart, with slightly slower comprehension over the following charts |
| - What is the main point of this chart? | - Brookings analysis chart was interpretable with explanation from me. |
| - How could you use this information? | - Because she is a faculty member at a university, the interviewee was intrigued by the framework. |
| - How does this connect to your work? | - Unsure how to incorporate into her day-to-day, but interested in the big-picture perspective of it. |
| - What was most confusing about this chart? | - The y-axis on the Brookings chart was most confusing overall. |
| - What changes would you make? | - Clarify when charts are only considering data from the U.S. |
In-Class Critique Feedback
During the critique in class, I was given several suggestions for how to improve upon my wire-frame charts:
- Add more useful reference points to first chart while removing extraneous data points
- Add average growth line as reference to compare with U.S. growth
- Use SDG icons on charts
- Add colors to column panels
- Use a Tableau dashboard to compare CMU graphs
Key Findings
The following ideas were either brought up by multiple users, or were suggestions that I agreed with immediately. The user research phase provided these insights into some key areas for improvement:
- It might be useful to refer to each SDG with a keyword, rather than by number
- Try re-arranging to emphasize trends, rather than the correct “order” of the SDGs
- The CMU graph is confusing and hard to interpret.
- My labels could be more interpretable
Next Steps
Moving forward, I have many changes to implement. I expect to produce several more iterations of my charts, in order to produce greater clarity. Some feedback I will implement includes:
- Re-arranging bars to more clearly show a trend
- Replacing SDG number labels with keyword labels
- Providing more context in the titles
- Adding reference points to two charts.
- Adding labels to key data points
If I have the time and ability, I would also like to try using the SDG icons within my data visualizations.
Finally, I am considering adding a little more context about the efficacy of the SDGs. I found a metanalysis that provides evidence that the SDGs have not yet had a great impact. This finding might help drive my story arc by indicating the need to improve SDG progress.
Personas
The following personas were created to represent a diverse group of organizational leaders across industries and sectors. Each is engaged in mission-driven work in some capacity, and each has a role that could exert influence on the organization. These personas are a limited and specific picture of what some of my audience-members might look like.
Mood Board
The design of my presentation is based on the UN SDG graphic design style already in place. Because there are official graphics available for public use, I will use those and draw from their colors and fonts. Pictured here is a mood board illustrating the relevant colors, graphics, and fonts, as well as another image from Unsplash that lends inspiration. Overall, the aesthetic is bold and colorful with clear symbology and sharp lines.
