Your course project is a data/info graphic narrative that examines one of four assigned topics from this goverment challenge
The final narrative should be presented as a single-page scrolling website.
The audience for this narrative is the interested general public (i.e., adult readers of The New York Times, viewers of PBS, etc.).
part 1: research
Begin by researching your assigned topic.
You are looking for a large set of data (or several large sets of data) that you can visualize to tell a compelling story. Alternately (or additionally), you are looking for a complex process that you could explain/visualize with a detailed explanatory diagram/information graphic.
For this challenge, there is ample public data, but it can be time-consuming to gather sources (data gathering is one of the skills you should learn as a result of this class).
As you examine set of data and information, ask yourself the classic “5Ws plus 1H” questions from the field of journalism: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How?
part 2: info/data graphic development
Based on the data sets and information that you have found, prepare THREE different SKETCHES of data and/or information visualizations. You can create any kind of information/data graphic types that you think are appropriate, including:
Guidelines:
*All axes and data should be labelled or identified with a key or legend.
part 3: website story development
Based on the data visualizations that you have sketched and refined, propose a compelling story for your website. You will need to tell this story in a series of screens that the user scrolls through.
To aid in navigation/understanding, it’s best to organize/structure your story in sections. Examples of story structures:
Begin this phase of the project by creating an initial design draft/wireframe of your website that outlines each section in your overall story.
You can use any software that you wish (we will review options in-class), as long as it results in a digital movie or click-through that can be projected from your laptop during our class critique.
Your wireframe/paper prototype must contain:
The goal is to make sure that you have a logical, compelling story to visually refine and code in the last four weeks of the quarter.
part 4: visual design and final website production
Once you have determined a specific story and story structure, you need develop a compelling and appropriate visual language.
*Note: you must have “real” text on the website— no lorem ipsum or “greeked” copy. However, you may quote directly from your researched sources.
Please include a bibliography/list of sources at the end of the web-site, with active links/urls.