Jackson Two

Category: Dear Data

  • Dear Data 2019 – Week 10, Data Pals

    Dear Data 2019 – Week 10, Data Pals

    Week 10 postcards are finally here for the data postcard project Sarah Bartlett and I are working on. The topic for the week was our relationship with each other. How much do we communicate, how often, when, and so on. And the timing was fantastic – Sarah and I recorded a video feedback session for #IronQuest ala business dashboards. That meant in addition to our normal back and forth we were preparing for the recording (and as always monitoring the latest when it comes to the postcards).

    I chose to approach the week by focusing on the time difference between us. Sarah and I use WhatsApp to text each other and after EVERY message there is a timestamp. So this got me very curious as to what the timestamp says on Sarah’s phone. I compiled all of our texts at the end of the week and jotted down their time (in my time) in a Google Sheet. Then I did the math to offset the time and began plotting.

    Dear Data 2019 – Ann’s week 10, data pals
    Dear Data 2019 – Ann’s week 10, data pals (legend)

    To demonstrate the difference in when we were talking to each other I chose to create two different time axes with the days of the week starting at the center line (Sunday) and moving outward toward Saturday. I was hoping to see a common pattern emerge around when we typically talk to each other. In reality it seems like independent of time of day we are both pretty responsive (Sarah did tell me to go to bed once). There’s one very small pattern that would probably emerge over more time – notice that Sarah messages me around noon and then I wake up in the morning and reply.

    You’ll notice that the viz itself is full of corrections – I spent a ton of care crafting out a precise grid for hours and days – but fell short on labeling and that in turn influenced where I put a few data points. I also realized after I mailed it that there are times when it’s the next day for Sarah vs. me – so at best the labels for days of the week represent the days from my perspective.

    Ending on a high note I created a bonus viz of emojis. My original idea was to add them as flourish to the dots, but because plotting them correctly proved difficult, I left it to a simple bar chart. Maybe a ratio would have been more effective? Ann uses 4 emojis per every 1 emoji used by Sarah.

    Here’s Sarah’s postcard:

    Dear Data 2019 – Sarah’s week 10, data pals
    Dear Data 2019 – Sarah’s week 10, data pals (legend)

    Once again Sarah delights! She’s clearly on a path of taking things to a new place of abstraction and using other objects as visual metaphors. Not only that, but she also captured MUCH more data about us – our interactions on Twitter, our postcards, and our #IronQuest feedback call. AND she included the number of cat emojis on WhatsApp. (!!) And amazingly enough – if you didn’t know it was data-driven – you’d assume it was just a sketch.

    There’s more to come soon – so keep an eye out! And in the meantime make sure you check out Sarah’s take on the topic.

    I really do hate how rusty these mailboxes are.

  • Dear Data 2019 – Week 9, To Do Lists

    Dear Data 2019 – Week 9, To Do Lists

    Week 9 of the data postcard project Sarah Bartlett and I are working on have arrived. The topic of the week was To Do Lists. I don’t actively keep good lists of tasks – they make me sad – especially when I have tasks that continue to go undone. I also think they miss describing/capturing how priorities can change. So instead of starting and attempting to track a to do list, I instead chose to track what it is I’m doing.

    I’ll be more clear – because of my line of work I track all of my work using an app. It’s very detailed to include project specifics. I figured it would be interesting to see how my attention gets divided in a given week. From a data collection perspective this meant I didn’t have to do anything different – the data I have is already tracked and the behavior already exists.

    So at the end of the week how did my schedule look?

    Dear Data 2019 – Ann’s week 9, to do lists
    Dear Data 2019 – Ann’s week 9, to do lists (legend)

    I ended up creating a classic Gantt chart showing Monday through Saturday. The bars are positioned based on time, with the far left being 6 AM and the far right being 9 PM, the width of the bars is duration (in time) and the color of the bars represents the projects I was working on.

    I will say this was a particularly busy week for me, as you can tell, I like to have 2 major projects going (red & orange) at a time with a significant amount of time spent on keeping the business running (the lighter blue). There’s some obvious bleed through of other projects this week, so it’s interesting to see how and when they get integrated.

    All the white space is non-clocked time. Depending on where I am, I usually find myself getting up for 5 to 10 minutes and taking a break to reset or switching to a different task. I enjoyed seeing this week illustrated, because it is a good reminder that a structured 9 to 5 schedule isn’t very realistic. It’s much more fluid, with similar start and stop times for each day, but with small gaps driven by the tasks being worked on.

    Sarah on the other hand chose to lean in on creating to do lists, here is here postcard:

    Dear Data 2019 – Sarah’s week 9, to do lists
    Dear Data 2019 – Sarah’s week 9, to do lists (legend)

    She admits, as I have, that to-do lists aren’t really her thing (which I rejoiced!). Immediately what’s interesting about her list is that it is dominated by personal tasks. For what I am assuming is a normal work week only about 25% of her to-dos fall in the work bucket. And I’d even say that she gets a large majority of her tasks done within the day of when she sets them up. I also like the nuance of metallic silver she’s added for aging tasks – a bit hard to see in the photo, but they add tremendous design effect in person.

    I’m noticing an emerging trend as we continue to create the postcards. Sarah has gone further down using other objects as abstract representations (she herself called the triangles flags) whereas I am mostly still in a more direct mode of creating charts).

    In real time we’re on week 13 – so there’s more to come and more mail to catch up with the progress we’ve made.

    As always, don’t forget to check out Sarah’s blog on the topic.

    Mailed on a Monday evening!
  • Dear Data 2019 – Week 8, Phone Addiction

    Dear Data 2019 – Week 8, Phone Addiction

    After the terrible flurry of complaints, Sarah and I continued on with week 8 of the dear data postcard project we’re conducting. Week 8 was a welcome change, tracking how often we use our phones.

    I was excited to jump on this topic to know more insight into what I’m doing on my phone (although there is also screen time now). To track the data for the week, I created IFTTT buttons that identified the first reason that I picked up my phone. This allowed me to keep track of the time, category, and also add on a more detailed reason.

    Because I chose to capture only the first thing I did on my phone, I feel that the data well represents that, but may miss out on additional tasks or items I was doing after I unlocked my phone. It may be better to say that these items were what caused my attention to be diverted to my phone OR were a necessary task to be done (mapping/music) via my phone.

    Dear Data 2019 – Ann’s week 8, phone addiction
    Dear Data 2019 – Ann’s week 8, phone addiction (legend)

    This postcard has the most detail from me to-date. After tracking the data, I was really only able to whittle it down to 15 different distinct categories. I felt that any further combining would ruin the detail of the data (and I didn’t like that I had to put flashlight and calculator together).

    Each segment of the line represents one usage and the time. It is almost like a running total chart with the lines connected at the points in time for the day. It was the best way I could think to figure out how often I use my phone for something and when (ex: is it all day or only in the morning). You’ll notice that this is the second week where I’ve started to use a ruler and pencil to draw out my visualizations in advance – I’m getting much more precise with what I want to convey.

    As no surprise and apparent by the back side, texting, email, and social media tend to make up the majority of my phone time. I was surprised by a lot of the smaller things that I don’t think about, but only do on my phone – in particular shopping, which includes both grocery shopping at the store and online shopping.

    I forgot to check my screen time at the end of the week, so here’s the most recent 7 days (does not align with my postcard, but should be good for additional context).

    Twitter dominates Wednesday & Thursday due to Workout Wednesday

    Here’s Sarah’s postcard for the week:

    Dear Data 2019 – Sarah’s Week 8, phone addiction
    Dear Data 2019 – Sarah’s week 8, phone addiction (legend)

    My first reaction when I saw this postcard was just amazement that Sarah was able to create such a beautiful picture with her data. The choice of colors, dots, and final shapes are so pretty. Then of course I’m immediately drawn to noticing that her social media habit picks up dramatically on the weekend (no surprise there), as does her usage of entertainment apps.

    In short, Sarah managed to take a topic that we both probably don’t feel the best about and portray it in a beautiful way!

    And that’s a wrap on this week. I really enjoyed this one, both from the two visualizations we made, to tracking and recognizing what I use my phone for. It’s not all evil (social media), there are lots of little things I depend on it for – including mapping, music, calculator, a time – the list goes on. So while it may be most known for communicating with others, it really does serve it’s purpose to help me in all facets of my life.

    At the post office again!

    Don’t forget to check out Sarah’s take on the week!

  • Dear Data 2019 – Week 4, Mirrors

    Dear Data 2019 – Week 4, Mirrors

    Week 4 of the data postcard project Sarah Bartlett and I are working on this year is here. We still have yet to reach consistent timing for postcard arrival. Sarah usually receives mine 2 days or more before I receive hers, but this week we were only one day apart.

    Week 4’s topic was all about mirrors and reflections of ourselves. I was intrigued by this one, I had no sense as to how often I look at myself properly in a mirror. Also, I decorate my house with a lot of mirrors (which you’ll see) – not because I am vain, but because they are great at reflecting natural light and making spaces appear larger.

    I ended up re-purposing my IFTTT buttons for this week, but found the data collection process much less labor intensive. In the original collections from Giorgia and Stefanie, they had both captured accidental glances, however I chose not to go down this path since I would likely spend way too much mental energy determining if it was accidental or on purpose (or turned to having a purpose).

    Dear Data 2019 – Ann’s week 4, mirrors
    Dear Data 2019 – Ann’s week 4, mirrors (legend)

    For the final visualization, I also decided NOT to use time as a dimension. Time has shown up in several of our previous postcards, so it was time to do something different. Instead I chose to represent the 5 different types of mirrors/reflective surfaces that I am around. I also captured some meta data related to the mirrors themselves, with each sketch being a rough estimate of the shape and proportion of each mirror.

    As with previous weeks, I chose to collect from Monday through Friday – and there’s some good insight with that knowledge. Looking at my bathroom mirror, there are 16 glances, 10 of which are me brushing my teeth. After seeing the results, I think what surprised me most was the kitchen mirror. My kitchen is in the center of a very open floor plan, but I didn’t realize how often I used it to check my appearance. In converse, the green mirror (my bedroom) is where I apply makeup or do my hair.

    I’m not impressed with my postcard this week, while I think it is an effective unit chart, I’m struck by the imprecision of the dimensions and some of the sloppy sketching. And the hashing of the corners to denote whether it was at home or not didn’t add much to the overall look.

    And here’s Sarah’s week 4 postcard:

    Dear Data 2019 – Sarah’s week 4, mirrors
    Dear Data 2019 – Sarah’s week 4, mirrors (legend)

    I really like Sarah’s this week. She managed to pull off a lot of depth by using different textures and writing instruments (there’s pencil vs. marker). If my assumptions are correct, then she and I start our mirror glancing the same way – in the bathroom. I also appreciate that she spent more time being specific about what was happening when she was looking at the mirror, and conscious of using mirrors for makeup.

    Mailed Sunday night from my favorite blue box!

    And that’s it for week 4 with mirrors. Don’t forget to check out Sarah’s blog post and get her take on the week.

  • Dear Data 2019 – Week 2, Transportation

    Dear Data 2019 – Week 2, Transportation

    It’s time for week two of the data postcard project Sarah Bartlett and I are working on this year. During this week our focus was spent on transportation, essentially how we get to different places.

    I live in the suburbs of Phoenix, AZ, tend to work from home, and drive to most places (read that as everywhere). So for this week, I decided to spend some additional time plotting my routes and tallying who was with me. Here’s my postcard:

    Dear Data 2019 – Ann’s week 2, transportation
    Ann’s week 2, transportation (legend)

    Each circle represents a day of the week (starting with Sunday) and my house. The lines going from the circle are paths that I took, each one representing a trip in the car. The direction from the circle is equivalent to the cardinal direction and each of the destinations are categorized into different colors. I also included who was with me and who was driving.

    I feel like this week’s postcard is very revealing in terms of my personal life. You can immediately tell that (at least for this week of tracking) I go nearly everywhere with my husband and that he is the primary driver. You can also see that I like to efficiently plot most of my paths and I also try to go to more than one place per trip. There are some fun exceptions to be seen, particularly on Friday, where I went to 2 different grocery stores in search of a very specific item (and still didn’t find!). The other exception was on Saturday, where I ended up driving. This was due to a spur of the moment trip after a few beers (not by me!).

    I also didn’t drive anywhere on Thursday and had planned to draw it on the postcard as a null in line with the other days. Magically I forgot to include it and had to re-add it. I actually quite like the authenticity and whimsy of that part, I think it reinforces the idea that this was something hand-drawn vs. computer generated.

    By contrast, here’s Sarah’s week 2 postcard:

    Dear Data 2019 – Sarah’s week 2, transportation
    Dear Data 2019 – Sarah’s week 2, transportation (back)

    Sarah chose to take a different path that I believe turned out really well – she created (what to me) looks like a flower that displays where she went and how she got there. In stark contrast to me, it seems like Sarah is rarely in a car and spends most of her time in other modes of transportation. I also really like the symmetry of the blue petal days, where she heads to the station, gets on a train, then the tube, goes to the office, and comes back. I am guessing when there’s nothing atypical in her week that most days look like that.

    I really enjoyed tracking this week and taking a different approach to sketching (and actually being OK with an oops moment). I’ve also been having an on-again off-again conversation with my husband on whether we should go back down to one car and after seeing the data I am more convinced than ever that we should downsize and switch to electric (although it can’t be seen, every destination was within a 10 mile radius of my home).

    A different post office box (and mailed during the day!)

    Don’t forget: check out Sarah’s blog post and get her take on the week.

  • Dear Data 2019 – Week 1, Clocks

    Dear Data 2019 – Week 1, Clocks

    Late last year Sarah Bartlett and I announced on the Hashtag Analytics podcast that we would be doing our own version of Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec’s data postcard project, dear data. The project is pretty simple – each week we record personal data, visualization the results via sketching, and send our postcards to each other.

    Sarah and I both thought this would be a fantastic growth opportunity – particularly around getting to know ourselves better, pushing the boundaries of our drawing skills, and expanding how we think and interact with data (given that we are both data professionals).

    We’ve decided to ease the load a bit by following the same general weekly themes that Giorgia and Stefanie originally selected. So for week one, we focused on time and clocks. Here’s my week 1 postcard:

    Dear Data 2019 – Ann’s week 1, clocks
    Dear Data 2019 – Ann’s week 1, clocks (legend)

    My approach was to catalog all of the major types of clocks that I look at and track when I looked at the time. My original data set included recording whether looking at the clock was intentional or by happenstance, but I ended up dropping that from the data set due to bias the project placed on knowing (and it also made every clock look intentional, since I knew I would have to track it!).

    For the visual, I chose to represent things in a very linear fashion, starting at 12 AM and going up to 11:59 PM of the day (Monday to Friday). This was during a holiday week, with New Year’s Day being on Tuesday – which I’m quite pleased you can see with the TV right at the far left of the second line.

    My working schedule this week was a bit less patterned than usual, but you can see that I typically wake up around 6:45 to 7 AM. And what I can see from this is clearly how the work I am doing influences how often I look at the clock. On Thursday I spent the entire day focused on a project – avoiding phone calls and emails. On Friday, I had to go to an in person meeting, which is completely visible by the continuous clock-checking that occurred from when I woke up to the conclusion of the meeting (I hate being late).

    I really like that I can see when I am deep in thought (or in the flow) that I’m less aware of time. And I also like how much anxiety can be seen on days where I have to be somewhere. The last thing that I know (and can somewhat be seen) is that I usually watch the news right before bed. So I can tell that Monday and Thursday were off-routine days (Monday being NYE).

    In contrast, Sarah chose to track her sleeping patterns for the week, since she knew her daytime schedule would be a bit hectic due to the holidays.

    Dear Data 2019 – Sarah’s week 1, sleep
    Dear Data 2019 – Sarah’s week 1, sleep (legend)

    I really like how she chose to visualize the length of sleep time as both a clock and a bar. The clock added in quite a bit of additional context to my understanding what her daily schedule looks like. (BTW: in contrast to Sarah going to bed after midnight consistently, I am typically tucked in by 10 PM).

    This week’s tracking was tough – it took a lot of persistence and reminder to ensure that every time I looked at something as basic as the time that I captured the details so specifically. Surprisingly I don’t check my watch or phone as much as I thought I do (for the time alone anyway).

    Dear Data 2019 – Proof I mailed it (at night)

    Don’t forget to check out Sarah’s blog and read her take on week one.