WHAT:
For a data visualization class our project was to create a one page, scrolling website that explains in depth an aspect of the court system. My partner and I chose to look into an overlooked, but important program, the Washington State drug courts.
WHO:
For this project I worked with one partner, a classmate, Rishi Agarwal. My role within this project was helping with research, providing creative direction, and production of the final assets.
WHY (THE GOAL):
The drug court is an alternative to jail that drug users can utilize to give themselves a second chance and a new perspective on life. Our challenge; prove the importance and benefits of this system using data from the system itself. An overarching goal of the project was to make a complex story simple using data.
WHEN:
This project was completed during the winter quarter of my Junior year at the University of Washington (January - March 2015).
EARLY RESEARCH:
To begin the project our original assignment was to identify an area of the court system that we wanted to pursue and find relevant research studies. As we began digging for interesting topics we kept running across the high recidivism rates of certain demographics, especially with drug crime offenders. One strong solution that has been in place 20 years is the Washington State Drug Courts.
My partner and I began researching and got into contact with employees at the King County Drug court. They were kind enough to have us out to their office and supply us with lots of useful data.
SKETCHING AND FORMING OUR STORY:
The design process next moved to sketching to try and map out an early version of our story. Although our class was focused on info and visual design, a main emphasis of the class was forming a strong story to support your arguments.
MOVING TO PIXELS:
After a few rounds of critique with sketches, we moved to digital versions our our designs. Pictured are some early versions of our drug court story, experimenting with different colors and ways to visualize our data. The main goal of this exercise was to try out many versions of our graphics to see what is interesting and unique while still remaining understandable.
The main goal of this exercise was to try out many versions of our graphics to see what is interesting and unique while still remaining understandable.
REFINEMENT:
Feedback on our first designs helped us to narrow down our ideas and choose a more refined story. With our next version we decided upon a color scheme to unify our site and made a first draft of our entire site. This version combined our efforts to make beautiful graphics and tell a strong story.
PIXEL VERSION 3:
After our last version we received feedback that our dark style didn't quite fit the drug courts feel. We were also told to include more information in our webpage. We turned this feedback into our next version (pictured below) that used a new color scheme and new forms of data visualization including a breakdown of each phase of the drug court from the defendant's perspective.
FINAL VERSION:
With our final version we tweaked our data visualizations and created a new color scheme. We also decided to break our website down into two sections; demographics and trends of the drug courts and a view of the participants perspective. The end result was an effective way to inform people about the drug court system and also prove the benefits with raw data. Our final webpage successfully tells the story of the Drug court and and also includes a few interactive sections.
The end result was an effective way to inform people about the drug court system and also prove the benefits with raw data.
