Based on the feedback received from the last class I deviated from the original storyboard which I proposed in part1.
My original Proposal was to study the mental health during the COVID. I modified to concentrate on Mental health as a whole.
I already decided to make my final project in Shorthand. Therefore I did not change the original balsamiq mockup or sketched again. Instead I concentrated primarily on Tableau charts and Shorthand to make it more appealing so that I can get feedback from reviewers in a more detailed way.
I started with a building a Persona and providing a problem context.This gave me a great start. Then I explained how mental health is important and what are the factors that are affecting it.I provided Tableau visualizations of how is Mental Illness affecting in USA.Slowly I built a call to action in the form of other alternatives to support good mental health.
Draft version of project is here
My audience are primarily general public as the Mental health is a common topic applicable to everyone. My main aim is to educate public about means to support good mental health. Majority of the information in this project is based on my personal views and information available in websites (Some are already cited). I am by no means an expert on this topic, but I strongly believe following suggestions will benefit everyone.
I sought the help of one of CMU student and 3 of my coworkers who were happy to help in giving feedback. I basically emailed to the reviewers telling them about the brief context on what is it about and asked them to answer the questions after they review. All reviewers really appreciated me in taking this specific topic as this is a need of this hour. I have tabulated the questions and responses below.
| Questions | Reviewer1 (CMU Student) | Reviewer2 (Coworker-Test Analyst) | Reviewer3 (Coworker-Program Manager) | Reviewer4 (Coworker-DB Architect) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Is it clear and easy to understand? | Yes, you are telling your audience that people from all walks of life can be affected by a mental illness. Your call to action in concise and direct. | Yes,Very well | Yes | Yes |
| Did you feel engaged? | I felt somewhat engaged. Honestly, there was a lot of text to get through and I found myself skimming over sections. Maybe trim some things down? Or rearrange into graphics or quick facts? | absolutely | Yes | Yes, the subject is very timely/important Today |
| What is unclear or confusing? | Is there a definition for the Household Pulse Survey? I like your data viz, but I wasn’t quite sure what it meant in regards to its data source.Also, I was confused about the Percentage of People without lasting Mental Illness (Primarily Depression and Anxiety). What does that mean? And if it isn’t lasting, are you looking at people no longer with mental illness? | I like the simple visuals and the message is clear. Couple of observations: I haven’t seen alignment with message compared to the visuals; | Anxiety Depression Chart has no y axis values. Also Section of ‘Percent of People who had Stressful life events which lead to Mental Health Issues’ has a subtext as ‘Percentage of People without lasting Mental Illness (Primarily Depression and Anxiety)’ which is confusing. (Why is this text needed here if there is no related visualization near by) | The grammar frequently is not correct or does not flow detracting from a more positive impact. Suggest you have a few people proof read and make suggestions |
| Do the use of Data and Visualizations help you to understand the context and support the presentation? | Yes. Can you enlarge them in Shorthand though? They are a bit small. Also, be aware that it looks like you changed up some colors (in the age groups, the colors aren’t consistent with the groupings throughout all the graphs). I would also recommend not putting the source directly above the graph, as it makes it look like the title. | Yes, they are | Just like the images, can the charts be placed on the side as well (and scroll along with the relevant text)? | Yes |
| Did something surprise you? | It was surprising that the youth numbers are so much higher than the other groups. | yes, Asians seem to be less affected at least as per the chart and that was a surprise! | Old people are showing more interest in Mental illness medication than youth | 10M have thoughts of suicide. Shocking |
| Is there a clear “call to action” or next step? what do you think it is? | Yes, the call to action is clear. You don’t present data on 4 out of the 5 things listed, which may not be a bad thing, just something I noticed. | Yes, clear. And I would add a paragraph on healthy diet as your summary refers! | Yes | Yes, the self help suggestions are excellent. You may want to include non-self help like therapy, counseling, group sessions, etc. |
| what did you like the most? | I really liked your introduction. I thought it was compelling and encouraged me to scroll down quickly. | Excellent introduction to get reader’s full attention and engagement. And nicely wrapped the message! | Loved the way the problems are described and providing a solution thereafter (along with the relevant data by the side) | The way the first 2 visualizations blended with the text is visually pleasing. Is there anyway you could keep this pattern throughout? |
| Suggestions on improvement? | Overall, I was impressed! I think your information looks good in Shorthand. I liked how you revised so COVID wasn’t overpowering the subject. Also, I understand the importance of the text, but I think there are some sections that could be trimmed down. It looks like you have made amazing headway for the final project!! | nicely done! | Some work needed to make it much better | Improve grammar. The photos of people are much more impactful. Consider replacing the “warning signs” photo with say “a person exhibiting a warning sign”. Replace pill bottle with a “happy person” i.e. the result of treatment; a more positive message. |
It was a great experience preparing the project to make it interesting. I used Persona and Moodboards which remarkably enhanced my original story. Reviewers provided me valuable feedback which I never thought of.All of them were deeply interested in the subject and earnest in providing feedback.I have to modify my charts to make it more understandable and also make the texts more clear and concise.During the course of this week I will enhance it and make it much better based on the feedback received.