Location | infovis-2015

General Description: With this location display I am trying to communicate to my audience that this section of the infographic is about the state-by-state results of the 2012 Presidential Election in an effort to drive the voter turnout for the 2016 Presidential Election. I utilized my newfound knowledge of creating maps from a previous assignment, choosing the strategy of finding a SVG map on the Internet and editing the colors to transform the map into a choropleth map.

Emulation Description: To emulate my models, I've used the blue monochromatic scheme (modified to indicate the differences in voting patterns) and separated the states using a bold white stroke to indicate flatness, thereby emulating the visual language model. I have incorporated the tall, thin font to emulate the typography model.

Displays that exploit the visual potential of location

Critique #1: Joel Elizaga

Joel preferred the first verison to the second version, though he appreciated the stronger contrast in terms of shading in the second version. For both versions, he suggested incorporating a color key to distinguish between the colors.

Model Emulation Feedback

Joel liked that the map location displays matched the color models well, but was confused about the color. He assumed that the color represents the Democratic Party and wasn't sure what the color grey represented. He preferred the thicker white lines between the boundaries of the state that was prsent in the first version. He liked the idea of changing opacity based on the margins of victory. He suggested placing percentages over the states.

Revisions based on this critique

Based on Joel's feedback, I have added a color key to visually encode the election results. I thought about utilizing a color scale to indicate the percentage of how much the Presidential candidate won the state by. I have kept the thick white outline and added percentages to Obama's and Romney's states that they won by the greatest margin.

First Iteration

Final display:

Second Iteration

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2012

Critique #2: Jake Anderson

Jake could understand the location display's purpose: to show the results of the 2012 Presidential Election. He noticed that the shades were different, but wasn't sure what the difference between the colors meant. He suggested making it more clear what each color represented, such as having a color key (e.g., who won the polls in this state or that state). He liked that they were simple and clear. Jake preferred the second version because there was more contrast in terms of color as the lighter gray stands out, but at the same time, he wanted the white outline in the first version as it was more bold and looked more visually appealing.

Model Emulation Feedback

Jake thought that my location display emulated my color and visual language model well, especially the first version. He suggested that I should combine both versions.

Revisions based on this critique

Since Jake's feedback was similar to Joel's, I chose to keep the bold, white outline of the map to separate the states and make the color contrast stronger between the states.

Critique #3: Emilee Smalley

Emilee preferred my second version to the first version, which was interesting since the first two people preferred my first version to the second version. She liked the thinner lines in the second version.

Model Emulation Feedback

She thought that my location displays emulated the color model well. Emilee wanted to know more about the meaning of the color in this location display. She noticed that there was a ribbon effect in the second version, particularly with the outline of Tennessee, so she suggested making the outlines a bit thicker but not as thick as in the first version.

Revisions based on this critique

Emilee's critique was different from the first two people's critiques, so I decided to make the lines thick, but not as thick as in the first version. I chose to add a color key.

Critique #3: Yiqing Zhao

Yiqing found it hard to distinguish the colors. She suggested that I should perhaps change the line that points to Utah to a darker color, like black. She liked that I highlighted the percentages.

Model Emulation Feedback

When I showed Yiqing my models, she thought that my location display emulated them very well, especially the color model. She did not think that I should be concerned too much about emulating the visual language model because I already had the circles with lines pointing from them.

Revisions based on this critique

Since Yiqing did not provide too much of substantial feedback, I felt confident in my color choices as my display emulated the color model extraordinarily well. I thought about highlighting the percentage numbers in order to show the viewer their importance. After hearing Marilyn's critique during check-in, I decided to focus on the swing states instead of the states that were best for Presidential candidates.

Critique #2: Jessie Peterson

She suggested that I should have one way to present the percentage instead of presenting it in two ways. She wasn't sure if the information represented the states that were won by the largest margin for each candidate (she was correct). She wanted me to be more clear why I chose these two specific states or regions.

Model Emulation Feedback

She thought that the display fit the color model well, and liked the white on white background as it makes these lines pop out.

Revisions based on this critique

I chose to take out the percentage number as it was not consistent with the rest of the visual language present in the location display. After receiving Marilyn's feedback, I realized that I needed to clarify the importance of voting, so I chose to focus on the swing states where one percent of voting could make all of the difference.

Critique #1: Hai Nguyen

Hai gave incredibly valuable feedback. In his critique, he was confused by the information I was trying to depict. He asked me if I was focusing on only two states or simply majority states. Hai pointed out ways to eliminate redundancy such as getting rid of the number 73% in Utah because the text already mentioned that "Romney won Utah by 72.79% of votes."

Model Emulation Feedback

When I showed Hai my models, he thought that my display emulated the color model well but suggested that to better emulate the color model I could get rid of the shades, or to incorporate the shade in the color key. He added that to better emulate the visual language model, I could incorporate some graphics enclosed in circles such as black and white images of Romney and Obama enclosed in circles.

Revisions based on this critique

I decided not to include the black and white images of Romney and Obama in circles for the time being. I chose to get rid of the shades to eliminate the ambiguity in interpreting the map.