Visualizing the possibilities

While I was fascinated with the ability to scrape datasets and create amazing interactive tools, I knew I would need to start small. My goal was to figure out how to use Flourish to create better data visualizations for our student survey results form GoogleForms. Our yearbook staff likes to survey the students for specific information that can connect to current events, trends or the yearbook theme.

First I went back to some of the responses we collected in 2018. I needed to take the raw data and put it into a sheet.

The original data looked like this:

response data

The sheet listed all the responses, but I needed to reorganize it to make it work with Flourish.

First I duplicated the sheet so I could sort the columns alphabetically and then paste data into separate columns.

Once I fixed the data, I needed to decide what type of graph would work best. I used the donut chart because it was similar to the graph we used in last year’s book for student surveys. the data was only in two columns, but this works for the simple survey.

after import

I then added important details in the header section as title,  subtitle includes the date range of the survey, annotations included the dates of the survey, the footer included source information and URL for responses and then a note included Graphic| Beth Marshall

Since this image would be put into a yearbook spread I choose to hide the numbers and labels so I can use the correct font on the actual spread.  I did keep the color legend as a reference.

When I finished with the chart, I downloaded the PNG so I could upload into our publication software.

final png

Looking back at this process, I would encourage my students to try to create surveys with more data that could be combined to tell an interesting story. The creation process was relatively simple, but you need to make sure the data is organized in the right format on a sheet.  I did follow Mike Reilly’s advice about looking over specific templates and checking the data views to see if my dataset could be used in that format. I also need to work with my staff in creating more in-depth surveys and also discuss what kind of data sets would be good to find to tell different stories during the school year.

In the future, I would like my students to use Flourish to help tell better stories with data on our online news site.  I can also see my staff using Flourish to create something we can use on social media to engage our students.