Relationships | infovis-2015

General Description: With this relationship display, I am trying to communicate to the audience the relationship of the Presidential candidates who are running for office in 2016. I chose to list the top three candidates for each political party, especially those who had lasted the race to the end. In other words, since the field was crowded for Republicans, I chose the final three candidates who were the last or most recent to run. I have connected the Democratic and Republican candidates to President Obama who has a question mark, as well as Democrats to each other and Republicans to each other.

Emulation Description: In this relationship display, I emulated the color model by making the background color light blue and encoding the Democrats and Republicans with the colors dark blue and black. I emulated the visual language model by utilizing the circular iconography and encapsulating the end points with filled circles. I added text descriptions to provide context.

Displays that exploit the visual potential of relationships

Critique #1: Yiqing Zhao

Yiqing liked both of my versions of the relationship display. She pointed out that it was confusing for her to see the relationships in the first version, and suggested that I should find a way to better organize the information present in the first version. For example, I needed to figure out a way to indicate who were the Democrats and who were the Republicans. Yiqing preferred my second version to the first version because it was clear and easier for her to read and understand.

Model Emulation Feedback

She thought both of the versions emulated the color and visual language models very well, especially colors. With a limited palette, she was impressed with what I could create. Yiqing pointed out that it was hard for her to see the white lines pointing to each step in the second version, so she suggested I could select a darker color (perhaps a dark blue or black) to make them stand out.

Revisions based on this critique

I took into consideration Yiqing's preference for the second version but ultimately decided to use the first version to revise because it was more impactful and meaningful. In order to better distinguish the Democratic and Republican candidates, I provided a short blurb for context and encoded their circles according to blue for Democrat and black for Republican.

First Iteration

Final display:

Second Iteration

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_candidates,_2016, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_candidates,_2016

Critique #2: Jacob Leighty

Jacob preferred the second version to my first version because it was more clear and he could appreciate the steps for a Presidential candidate to eventually become the President. He thought that my first version was confusing in terms of the size of circles and what it was trying to portray.

Model Emulation Feedback

For the second version, he suggested that I should change the color of the lines from white to a darker color such as dark blue or black. Jacob pointed out that I could add a blurb to the first version to explain what the relationship display was about if I wanted to emulate the visual language model. He mentioned that I should clarify the importance of the circles, which I sized according to the candidate's popularity in terms of votes prior to the party nomination. I wanted to showcase President Obama as the President and his connections to other candidates.

Revisions based on this critique

Based on Jacob's critique, I incorporated a short blurb with a title for the relationship display to provide context for the information. I tried to clarify the importance of the circles' sizes by adding numbers next to the candidates to indicate their place in terms of votes they received during the primary season.

Critique #3: Hamzah Aly

Hamzah strongly preferred the first version to the second version because he felt it was more powerful than the second version. However, he agreed with the other critiques that the second version was easier to understand. Hamzah pointed out that it is up to the audience to interpret the information, since it takes time to truly understand the first version.

Model Emulation Feedback

In terms of feedback, Hamzah suggested that I could make the circles a different color, maybe black or dark blue, since he could not see the rings' outlines. He thought that my first version emulated my visual language model extremely well. The color model was emulated well in both versions. Hamzah repeated the critique that the white lines in the second version could have been a darker color.

Revisions based on this critique

I agreed with Hamzah that the first version was more powerful, so I chose to revise the first version. To clarify the information, I made the lines and circles a different color: blue for Democrats and black for Republicans. To better emulate my visual language model, I decided to add a question mark to the circle with President Obama because the focus was on the eventual President, not the personal relationships of President Obama.

Critique #3: Michelle Lee

Michelle was a little confused about the display, mainly because she was not sure why Obama was in the middle since he is not running in 2016. She was confused by the backgrounds of the people in portraits since some had black backgrounds and some had white backgrounds. She suggested that I should outline the Republican candidates' circles in black. She thought that Joe Biden's inclusion was strange, so she suggested that I should take him out.

Model Emulation Feedback

Michelle thought I did a great job with emulating the color model and visual language model, but suggested that I could take some of the end points off. She pointed out that I did not have to use all of the end points since the model did not.

Revisions based on this critique

I took out Joe Biden and chose to keep the end points I decided to fill the space by adding the lists of the Presidential candidates that dropped out of the race or did not make the final three candidates.

Critique #2: Hai Nguyen

Hai suggested that perhaps I should make the borders black. He liked the color coding because it was obvious what each color represented and especially liked the Obama circle. He thought that the Joe Biden circle was a little out of context, so he recommended that I could do without him since the display is about presidential candidates running in 2016. Overall, Hai thought the display was strong and consistent, as it portrayed information clearly.

Model Emulation Feedback

He thought my relationship display was consistent with the visual language model, as it showcased the unity of the elements. Hai liked the use of the color model in color coding the political party candidates; to improve the display, he suggested making the borders black for Republicans and eliminating the Vice President circle (Joe Biden).

Revisions based on this critique

Just as Randi mentioned, Hai gave similar feedback so I have taken out Joe Biden and made the borders black to be consistent.

Critique #1: Randi Mendel

Randi liked that I changed the colors and encoded them for the rest of the relationship display. She thought that Joe Biden seemed to be a little out of place but could see why I included him. She suggested I should work on the placement of numbers and names since they seem disconnected in some areas.

Model Emulation Feedback

She thought that my revised display emulated the models really well. Randi recommended that I could make the outline of Republican circles black to be consistent with the rest of the display.

Revisions based on this critique

Based on Randi's critique, I chose to take out Joe Biden from the relationship display and colored the outlines of the Republicans' circles black.