FINAL PROJECT WORKSHOP 01:�SKETCHING AND EARLY PROTOTYPING

November 15, 2016

�SDS136: Communicating with Data

Final Project Deliverables

• Nov. 1^st - FP1: Topic Brainstorm
• Nov. 15^th - FP2: Persona and Critical Review
• Nov. 29^th - FP3: Initial Prototype
• Dec. 8^th - FP4: Revised Prototype
• Dec 15^th – Final Project Reception (demos!)
• Dec. 22^nd - FP5: Final Write-Up

Monday’s Brainstorm: Connections

Activity 1: big questions

• What question is the project is trying to help answer?
• How have people answered it / gotten around it before?
• What new idea does this project offer that improves on the old way of doing things?
• What are the (major) building blocks the project will need to be successful?
• Which ones are in place already, and which ones are still in progress?
• Are there any potential roadblocks?

​

2015 Example: supreme court decisions

2015 Example: supreme court decisions

What question is the project is trying to answer?

​

We are trying to help people better understand patterns in how the US Supreme Court votes.

​

For example:

• How often do S.C. justices actually vote in 'blocks’?
• How does justice X vote on specific issues?
• How does justice X vote compared to justice Y?

​

2015 Example: supreme court decisions

How have people answered it / gotten around it before?

​

Reading opinions written by justices generally helps experts understand how they vote. People haven't done as much research on aggregate data in this area, although some textbooks use graphs generated by:

supremecourtdatabase.org

​

There is not much information designed to help average citizens understand how the supreme court votes.

​

2015 Example: supreme court decisions

What new idea does this project offer that improves on the old way of doing things?

​

This project will provide a simple way to explore the data. Ideally, it will give the user enough flexibility to explore what they want, while not being too overwhelming (as some other databases are).

​

It will also be interactive; others are not.

​

2015 Example: supreme court decisions

What are the (major) building blocks the project will need to be successful?

​

The major building blocks we will need are

a) access to data on issues, votes, etc. and

b) access to written opinions

​

The project will also need to be intuitive, so we will need help to choose the right visualizations for this data.

2015 Example: supreme court decisions

Which ones are in place already, and which ones are still in progress?

​

We have already gotten most of the data on issues and votes from online sources. We still need to figure out how to deal with the text of opinions. We have not decided how to visualize the data yet.

2015 Example: supreme court decisions

Are there any potential roadblocks?

​

We haven’t learned how to work with text data in Tableau yet, so that might be more difficult than we expect.

Activity 1: big questions

Discussion

​

​

​

What potential roadblocks did you discover?

Activity 2: roadblock resolution

Activity 2: roadblock resolution

Coming up

• We have 8 people signed up to give a “Visualization in the Wild” presentation on Thursday – can accommodate up to 8 additional presentations on Tuesday

​

• For the Tuesday after the break: start prototyping your initial design:
• Figure out how to get your data into tableau
• Start laying out a storyboard
• Plan out if/how you’re going to use interaction
• Etc.