The major roadblock I came across this week was figuring out how to use a “single view to filter other views in dashboard.” However, after re-watching some of the Tableau intro videos, going to office hours, and outside googling I am 99.9% sure I figured it out.
There are several decisions I made to focus my visualizations:
- I narrowed the temporal scope of the data from 1922-2005 to 1934-2001 for two reasons. One, for a lot of the state-level variables there was missing data for the years 1923 and 1924. Two, I thought using the same range of years for the state-level and national-level data would make the visualizations, and the argument I am attempting to make, easier for a viewer to comprehend.
- The original study I am pulling this data from has made the distinction between “jail population” and “prison population.” For the purposes of my final project, I chose to only use the “prison population” data because it was the most consistently documented. I also wasn’t sure if I would be skewing the data if I combined the two columns.
In terms of interactivity, I used the “single view to filter other views” for two of the dashboards I made. For instance, for the first dashboard, users should be able to click on a state and corresponding information on the percentage of nonwhite population, real per capita income, and people who live in urban areas regarding the selected state and year. I am hoping to add further interactivity to the first two dashboards by including a function that enables a user to click on a state and a link to another website, article, or information appears. I hope the inclusion of outside resources will help contextualize my argument and the data presented.
I am honestly unsure about the “look and feel” of my project. Using navy blue for my “State-Level count of Police Officers,” or using a shade of red for “Homicide Rates” or “Executions” doesn’t really sit well with me. I plan on spending some time looking through the color palette to find some not-so-overtly politized color scheme ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Some other things on my do-to list are:
- Finalize the format and text across all visualizations.
- Draft, and edit, the argument and analysis portions of my final project.
- Convince some friends to look over and give feedback before the last week of classes.
One reply on “Module 11: Work”
Re: prison vs jail, one rationale for excluding the jail population may be that often people in jail have not yet been convicted, so if you’re looking at the history of people who have been convicted, that would necessarily exclude much of the jail population.
If you’re struggling with your dashboard interactions, link your workbook so I can see how you’ve got it set up.
As far as colors, remember that you’re not restricted to Tableau’s defaults. (see here https://help.tableau.com/current/pro/desktop/en-us/formatting_create_custom_colors.htm). If you can write html, you can write yourself a new color palette. It wouldn’t get you away from politics per se, but you could use the color palette of https://www.8toabolition.com/, INCITE, Critical Resistance, or another related prison abolition group. You could also use a palette of grays + 1 highlight color from one of the above orgs if you don’t need many different colors