Assessing Higher Education Attainment
Expanding education attainment reach for greater impact
My Role
Design Strategy, Information Architecture, Visual Design
Team
Periscopic
Year
2022
Project
The aim of this project was to build on the foundation of existing project developed and maintained by Periscopic for several years. The goal was to introduce new features and improvements to engage a wider audience, including newcomers to data analysis, first-time users, and those with no prior knowledge of educational attainment. Visit the full project here.
My Contributions
My focus was on improving comprehension and making key information more accessible to first-time users. I proposed and designed a component that builds upon the existing list of key insights by presenting them contextually within the charts, and an interface control designed to help users navigate and understand the charts with ease.
The site offers a rich array of charts for exploring higher education data at national, state, and county levels, with layers of interactivity that provide details into demographics, age groups, gender, and credentials.
Guided Data Exploration
The site offers numerous methods for presenting its extensive data, each providing value and depth, especially for more advanced users.
The Show Me feature was designed to assist new or less experienced users interact with the data more confidently and understand educational data better. When activated, the Show Me displays "coach marks" that highlight key elements and controls. The labels provide brief explanations of chart controls and the information it will display, while the chart labels help users understand and derive meaning from the chart.
The insights panel catered to two audiences: those seeking quick takeaways for journalistic purposes and those new to assessing educational attainment.
Insightful Navigation
The new Insights Panel relocated existing insights to a persistent, navigable side panel. Users can click on insights within this panel to swiftly cycle through highlights for each data visualization on the page. Selecting an insight automatically scrolls the page to the corresponding chart, displaying a semi-transparent overlay with dynamic text and corresponding chart annotations.
Working with my team lead, we integrated this component into the existing mobile navigation menu, maintaining existing functionality.
