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Final Project Part 2: Storyboards & Wireframes

Storyboarding

Below is my storyboard for the project. However, all vizualizations are currently held here for now.

Part 1 Talk about how important kelp forests are

Harbor lots of biodiversity
- Provides buffer for coastal areas from extreme weather
- Kelp industry booming, kelp products growing more prominent
- Is home to protected animal species

Part 2 Introducing Predators

Otters are a keystone species of kelp forests in California
- They eat urchins
- They help prevent urchins from over grazing on kelp forests
- They are also cute!
- Otters bring much tourism
Sunflower Sea Star
- Also a keystone predator in kelp forest ecosystems
- Are the top predator of purple sea urchin
- Abundant up until the mid 2000s.

Part 3 Predator populations

Otters used to number in the hundreds of thousands, but since the fur trade entered full swing, their numbers were reduced thousands-fold down to only some hundred individuals!
However, since the mid 1960s, otter populations have resurged and are now around 2,000
Conservation success?
Sunflower sea stars have never had trouble with abundance—until 2013.
Around 2013, sea star wasting disease pandemic began that reduced the sunflower sea star population—decrease of 90%

Part 4 What does this mean for kelp?

Since kelp rely on predators to eat urchins to prevent over grazing, the low numbers of sea otters and sunflower sea stars have greatly decreased coverage
In their place are urchin barrens—bare rock where sea urchins litter the sea floor.

Part 5 Call to action

Donate to organizations funding research on sea star wasting disease, kelp ecosystems, and sea otter management practices.

On missing data visualization drafts

I have no current visualizations for kelp disappearance. However, I have properly processed and sorted approximately 83 million data entries over 40 years on kelp biomass. Because of the extremely large data files, using these entries has proven time-consuming (7 hours for basic sorting). But, now that all the data are cleaned and sorted, I will be able to show the disappearance of kelp forests since the beginning of the sea star wasting disease endemic.

Protocol for Interviews

For each interview, I shared with them the draft of my shorthand page, with visualizations. I let them read the parts that were more fleshed out, and stopped them when there were places with missing context. I explained a bit about the context overall, but I did not explicitly tell them what the maps/graphics were representing because I wanted to hear from them what they thought they were about.

My goal with my questions was to identify who they thought the target audience was, if the shorthand page was clear and readable overall, how I might better represent data over time, and what novel visualization types might be appropriate in addition to mapping. In my questioning, I would frequently ask my questions (below) plainly and see what they had to say. Then, I would tell them my expectations about how I wanted the viewer to feel, and I would ask whether I achieved that, with mixed results of whether or not I hit the mark.

User Interviews

Below are a list of questions asked to all interviewees and their responses, as well as a description of the interviewees.

Interviewee 1: Classmate, masters of public policy student, early 20s

Interviewee 2: Kinesiology student, bachelors degree, early 20s

Interviewee 3: PhD candidate in US history, mid 50s

Questions

What do you think of the tone so far?

Persuasive, but a bit passive. Call to action is nice, and the story leads in a clear direction.
Tone is good. Very consistent. Does not feel sanitized or clinical. Still feels scientific and serious, but like you are communicating to non-experts.
Overall good, but there are some things (in the shorthand version) that need editing. Emphasize the importance of things more–“more important than what?”

Who do you think is the target audience?

Audience seems like the general public. Environmentally focused indivisuals, but still general public. Otter lovers.
Non-experts who are concerned about the environment, especially marine life. People in the pacific coast.
Young people, educators, general public. Anybody who has interest in marine ecology or the environment. Language is approachable and inviting.

Changes to Data Visualizations?

Get red of redundant/irrelevant info in your maps. I want to be able to zoom in. Needs a legend. Would be nice to be able to zoom in. Eliminate unimportant city names. You could change the color scheme to something more indicative of change for any heat maps you make.
Thinks definitely need keys, otherwise it is hard to tell what is going on. Need clearer markers of growth and decline of populations, not just one point in time. Also, declare when the sea star wasting disease started. (Unrelated to this question, but he also indicated that I should include more information on why kelp is important)
Overall very easy on the eyes, but needs a key/legend. Putting in big cities is helpful to identify where exactly we are looking. Also, depending on the audience, it might be helpful to label which ocean we are looking at. Using dots is not the best way to indicate differences in density/abundance–stick with heat map.

How should I integrate different data sets with each other?

It might make sense to combine the sea otter tracts with other data so that the tracts can make a heat map of other species where the otters live.
You should add information together into one vizualization. Overlay otter population with kelp population and sea star population. That way you can start to make more connections.
Overlaying different information from each species onto one map might be helpful to make better connections.

How are the colors of the website overall?

Overall, very good and cohesive, fitting of the theme and don’t cause disconnections between sections.
Colors are good. The visuals are good and go well with the information they appear with. The whole thing is really easy to read, very easy on the eyes and makes logical sense.
Colors of the website are great. However, some of the colors in the visualization should be more distinct. Maybe fewer categories on heat maps to be able to make clearer distinctions (less gradient, more clear groups).

How important does this issue feel after seeing my storyboard?

A little important, but not that much. Not life or death. If you switched the voice to be more action-oriented, that could make a difference. Images of urchin barrens would create a much bigger impact. (As a note, on further conversation I learned that I failed to convey the magnitude of the problem, that 90% of the global population of sunflower sea stars was eliminated by the disease)
It feels pretty important, but not super important. If you could get the audience to have a better sense of the scale, then it would appear more important.
Feels pretty important because you explain how and why things are disappearing. That in and of itself tells me this is important. Talking about ecotourism, the environment, and the aesthetic value gives the problem weight. The transitions between different segments also help focus the audience on important aspects of the story.

Besides maps, what other visualizations would make sense to convey this story?

Using a line chart over time for otters and sea stars. Line graph would be good to draw connections between urchin and sea star populations as well.
Use some type of line chart showing decline of different species.
Doing some sort of overlap between sea star wasting disease prealence/sea star mortality and kelp area would be good. Tat makes the connection between kelp deforestation and sea star wasting disease more clear. For non-map things, try using a bar chart using the same data and same message.

Should I elaborate more on the food web/trophic cascade?

Yes, talk more about this. That would give a much more in-depth understanding of the issue.
Do a deeper overview of the food chain and trophic cascade. That would really help solidify the explanation of why this is important and how the mechanisms work.
Yes, talk more about the trophic cascade. You can do that with a map overlaying multiple species’ patterns.

Changes to Make in Light of Feedback

One of the biggest pieces of recurring feedback was that my visualizations need keys. This did not surprise me given that they are all rought drafts. What did surprise me a little bit was that viewers were not always sure how change was intended to be represented with the visualizations.

Another trend was joining data sets together. The consensus was that showing the change in abundance for all species over time on the same map or graphic would be the most convincing of trends and the interrelatedness of different aspects of the problem. I will add maps and line charts to show these data concurrently.

The most useful, albeit unfortunate, piece of feedback was that I did not do a good job of conveying the magnitude of the problem. It was lost on them that 90% of sunflower sea stars had perished, and the broad extent of kelp deforestation. To correct this, I will try to use more striking images (e.g. images of urchen barrens compared to healthy kelp canopy) as well as data visualizations that dramatize the changes over time, like a unit chart of some sort.

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