For my data art project, I chose to compare the inflation rate and the average amount of student loans a person has upon graduation. The red circles represent inflation and the green circles represent student loans. (Between the years of 2003 and 2017, where each new set of circles represents another two years)
The point I was trying to get across with this piece is that over the years, inflation has increased at a slow, linear rate in comparison to the rate of student loans exponentially increasing. I personally believe that the cost of college should move up at a very similar rate that inflation does, but instead it increasingly gets more and more expensive, and far surpasses the rate that the value of the dollar is decreasing.
While the green circles are showing, it’s difficult to see the red circles’ change in size, and they all look the same size. I wanted that to happen, but I also wanted the viewer to be able to see the change if they wanted to. I added a feature in which you can click the screen to change the size of the green circles, so you can see inflation clearly with and without them.
I’m not sure if I have the right timing on the rate at which I show the green circles growing. I didn’t want it to be completely smooth to make it seem like the cost of college is creeping up at an overwhelming rate. Does that get the point across, or should I just make them smoother?
UPDATE:
There was some confusion on my previous submission on what represented an increase in data, the circles on the x-axis or how their scale changed over time. I only meant for the growth over time to be a quick transition animation, which admittedly was not communicated at all in my last post. I made some text at the top to explain, and in addition I labeled each set of circles with the year. Lastly, I also made it so the counter stops, so the animation only plays once and doesn’t loop.
Making it not completely smooth does get the point across, as it slowly gets bigger and bigger- so the “creeping up” effect is made. If anything, maybe making the rate of the green more fast-paced could enforce that sense of stress from the loans.
I am intrigued with how you demonstrated a complicated concept and made it work with the constraints that were put unto the project. I like the sharp movement of the circles, but I think they would benefit more if they matched the timeframe-likeness of the data. For example, the data takes place from 2003 to 2017, meaning that you could smooth it more out by having 10-14 possible intervals. What was the design choice in the shapes that you used? One opinion I have is the rate of speed of the red circles. To me, I see little to no movement in the red circles, causing me to not make the connection with the data. Maybe making the green circles larger and having a fixed (yet small and visible) growth rate for the red circles would allow for the audience to see the difference.
Thanks for your comment, to be completely honest I didn’t put much thought into my choice of shape other than I thought 2-dimensional shapes would be easier to compare, since a smaller 3D sphere would’ve been “swallowed” by the bigger one and not appear.
I’m not sure I understand how the data is being displayed here. Red is inflation and green is student loans, but green increases right to left as well as throughout the animation. There are effectively two axis on which the size changes: X-position and time. It is unclear to me how I am meant to put all of this information on a complete timeline, or if one of those axis doesn’t represent time at all.
My question then is what each of the two axis I mentioned are supposed to indicate. My best guess is that both measure time, where one screenshot is a two-year period, but then it would surprise me that student loan growth seems to reset every two years.
Thanks for your comments, in hindsight I definitely made this more confusing than it should be. The x position is supposed to represent a change in actual time, where the leftmost set of circles represents the year 2003 and the rightmost set represents the year 2017. The “time axis” you mentioned doesn’t actually represent time, I just started the green circle’s scale at what inflation was for that year and animated it to grow to what the student loans for the year actually are. I only did that to show my thoughts that student loans SHOULD closely follow the rate of inflation and not extend further.
This is super data driven, I notice. Permissioned opinion about labels: I think you could definitely benefit from having more labels with years, because of how data-driven the piece is. I think because the piece changes with time (or clicks), and also has different circles representing time it becomes hard to tell what element is representing the years, which labels could clear up.
I notice the intensity of the contrasting colors to show the urgency of the loans.
I like that the rate of change isn’t completely smooth – it demonstrates the overwhelming nature well. Why did you choose the green and red colors to represent inflation and student loans?
Thanks for your comment, I chose green simply to represent money. I chose red partially because the phrase “in the red” means that a person or organization is in debt, and also partially because I thought it was a complimentary color to the green.
I find the rate at which the shapes change to be very easy to understand and a good middle ground between slow and fast enough. I think it also brings the point across the viewer really well.
I have an opinion about the readability of the piece. The flow of time is represented by having the differing circles next to each other but also by time in the animation. It made me do a little bit of a double take to understand what having multiple circles meant and what the animation meant, but they both mean the same thing anyway.
Even with the slower rate, the message still comes across. It might be interesting to slow down a little more and at each pause, show the year or growth rate in text.
If I can share my opinion, looking at the beginning and after the student loan circles the red circles sort of shrink and go through a bit of an optical illusion, I like that because it gives the piece more emphasis on the amount of change on the student loan.