You create meaning by paying attention
There’s a wonderful book called Dear Data, a collaboration between the information designers Georgia Lupi and Stephanie Posavec. Georgia lives in New York and Stephanie in London; they spent a year tracking their lives, a new topic each week — “apologies”, “time spent on my phone”, “use of public transportation”, “clocks.” At the end of each week, both women compiled and designed their data into a postcard-sized graphic, which they sent to each other in the mail. The resulting collection of 104 postcards is not only gorgeous (it’s in the permanent collection of the MOMA); it’s also a fascinating look at how differently any two people will choose to measure and present a set of data.
Since information design is one of my great loves, I immediately started to experiment. My mom, an artist herself, agreed to try a week with me. We began with something straightforward: food. For a week I carefully marked down the times, places, and content of every snack, drink, meal, and treat. I also noted whether or not the food was local; whether I ate it with friends or family; and whether it contained any animal products. Tellingly, my mother tracked differently; although she too tracked time, she also focused on what health/medical condition each food was good for: heart-healthy, good for bone health, anti-inflammatory, etc.
Diagram 1
I was excited to convert my raw data to a graphic. I spent several hours planning and drawing the first diagram and its legend. I used an arc shape to try and represent the passing of time, the rising and setting of the sun. Meals were large circles; snacks were small circles; drinks were little waves. The colors corresponded roughly to the color of the food. Various other little dots and symbols indicated “local,” “ate with friends,” etc.
I found Diagram 1 unsatisfying, though. It didn’t seem to really tell me anything, and I didn’t feel that I’d used the space economically. I decided to try again.
Diagram 2
Since I’m a vegetarian, I decided to use the conceit of a growing plant, with different kinds of foods representing different “branches.” Instead of indicating what I ate day by day, I grouped my foods by time of day — one plant for morning, one for midday, one for evening.
Diagram 2 made it easier to see what types of foods I ate more often — but, again, I didn’t feel that the diagram was really a success. The plant metaphor seemed a little labored, and no particular “story” jumped out at me.
Note that I made two variations of Diagram 2. In one I symbolized the drinks as leaves; in the other I put them as drops under the ground. I think version 2 is more successful, in that drink (which was mostly water, that week) looks more elemental or more fundamental than food.
Diagram 3
Diagram 3 was the breakthrough. Since I seemed to be more interested in the time of day rather than the differences between days, I decided to use a kind of “clock” shape, with the hours as clockwise rays and the days as concentric rings. Immediately, I could see that this diagram had more storytelling power. For one thing, the blank wedge of the clock made it easy to see that I never ate or drank between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. — something that wasn’t clearly evident in the other diagrams. I could also see that I ate almost exclusively fruit in the mornings, and other types of foods in the evening. In this diagram I hadn’t broken down meals by ingredients, though, and the color I’d chosen for “meal” was similar to the color I’d used for “fruit.” So I decided to make one more iteration, with more distinctive colors, and add in a few more extra details (like the “local” and “with friends” notations).
Diagram 3.2
Success! The additional colors and details fleshed out the story even further. I usually eat vegetables as part of a meal, and usually later in the day. Grains rarely show up before noon; even more surprising (to me) was the discovery that I eat cheese almost exclusively after 5 p.m. Cheese is almost the only animal product I eat; it’s also one of the only high-fat products I eat. Clearly, I reach the end of the day and my body says, “I’m hungry. I want something with fat in it. Where’s the cheddar?” If I wanted to go completely vegan, all I would have to do is figure out another way to satisfy that late-in-the-day desire. I was pretty fascinated to learn that about myself!
The take-home message for me? Begin and iterate. Keep pushing around your data until you learn something. Change tactics. Experiment. Be interested in finding the story.