Inspired by the Dear Data Project, we created 5 data visualization postcards. Our hidden data was related to our work experience, and was tracked during 7 days. Each member designed their own visualization and sent it to one of our classmates.
Hidden data
For our data collection, we found it interesting to analyze our work environment and productive efforts. Interestingly, our initial individual brainstorming led most of us to consider this area of our lives, showing how this was a common point of interest. Currently, all group members are employed. Nevertheless, we eventually decided to include our efforts in our studies and any other labor we considered “productive” as well.
In a time when home-office and online lessons are the norms, we felt particularly curious about the personal circumstances and states we went through throughout the day, and how these are hidden from our colleagues and peers – sometimes even from our own selves.
During exchanges with our colleagues, whether in meetings or through emails, emotions are usually kept purposefully hidden. There are however cues in body language or “between the lines” of what is said, that usually reveal this subtext. But as these encounters occur increasingly online, much of these signals are lost and this data becomes occluded.
The same happens with our surroundings. When the working space is immersed in the private space of the home, many distractions and circumstances are lost to the others. Supervisors may then consider that employees have simply lowered their productivity or are rude in not answering calls, unknowing of what is happening around them.
Moreover, much other personal data is naturally hidden, like our stress or comfort levels, our feelings of enjoyment and happiness with our work, or how motivated we feel at any given time or towards a particular task.
Having talked about these circumstances, we decided to gather data on our own experience and personal feelings while working, for a period of seven days. Firstly, we would track the time we dedicated to it in the day. Then we selected a few dimensions to focus on: how much energy we felt we had, how productive we were, our stress, and our motivation/enjoyment with the task.
Tracking process
Since each of our group members’ jobs and tasks is different, so were our data tracking approaches. Nevertheless, since the categories we chose to track were quite subjective, the general method was a kind of journaling. Each noted their perceived levels of energy or satisfaction throughout the day, with higher or lower frequency, at regular intervals (half an hour, an hour) or at relevant incidents (end of a task). Some chose digital note-taking in their phones, some data-sheets, others hand-written notes. For our productive time, a few used a time-tracking app.
The task of tracking our data was simple enough, although it was easy to forget regular journaling or to assess each data dimension in a way that made sense and kept to a stable scale throughout the week.
Visualization design
Each group member had a different way of encoding their data, reflecting their data gathering process and their personal focus of interest.
Data aggregation was done per day by one member, while the others chose an hourly/half-hourly display. Three of these used a timeline style; the fourth used a clock metaphor.
To encode the different categorical attributes, three of them used symbols/glyphs and one color. Another one used color to separate each attribute, but size and shape encoded the values. These features were also used in another postcard, while the “clocks” metaphor used angles for the mapping.
The results
Group work
The group struck a good balance between personal design development and collaboration. We used several online tools for support: Miro boards for brainstorming, Trello for task management, Discord for group calls, and Signal for daily chats. We met once or twice a week to discuss ideas and delineate our action plan, and kept in touch while developing our visualizations.
Conclusions
Tracking our personal data throughout seven days and designing its visualization, moved us to analyze and rethink the way we work and how we perceive our productivity. It was interesting to see how our energy interacted with our motivation and how much or how well we managed in our productive times. Overall we felt satisfied with the resulting visualizations, as well as the diversity of ideas and interpretations our group developed.
The idea of sending it to another group was exciting as well, and we appreciated their response to them. Although the exact mapping might have escaped their interpretations, overall they could get an idea of how productive our week had been, and that different emotions and dimensions were being displayed alongside.