Data Visualizations and Narratives Fall 21

The Visualizing Health website offers a very professional feel to its wide variety of visualizations that assess health risks based on available data. It guides users through a wizard to gather information about what their goal is for communicating risk.

Upon completing the wizard guide, the website brings you to a great page that offers various criteria on the left side with corresponding graphics to the right. The criteria include goals and details that were prompted in the wizard guide that can be easily changed if a different result is desired.

Some of the other specifications include available data and the health conditions of interest. Depending on what boxes are checked, the website will display a bunch of colorful, informative, and effective graphics. The graphics range from pie charts, to histograms, and even to simple statistics that are offered in an efficient visual presentation.

Another great feature that the website offers is the ability to change what graphic type you prefer. This is useful for narrowing down how you want to present your data for certain health risks. For example, a bar graph would be preferred for showing risk of certain diseases over time and this tool lets you filter for exactly that.

Overall, I think this is a great website not only for visually communicating health risks but also for learning how to use visualizations effectively. I was very impressed by the amount of features offered as well as the general design. The colors of the text, lines, and shapes are high in contrast with the dark background which makes the presentation visually pleasing. Everything is also organized neatly which makes this a great tool for all users.

The Vizhealth Wizard upon entering introduces the visitor to a gallery of different graphs with a plethora of information concerning risk and personal health.

I was quite impressed with the categorization on different topics. The screenshot posted does not do the categories justice, having more than 5 different subjects and specified tabs for each of them.

Another impressive feature is the amount of charts provided by Vizhealth and the ability to filter different kinds of charts to fit your liking. Not only that, but the design and customization of each graph makes each of them feel truly unique.

Seeing elements of what we learned so far in the course really shows how valuable infographics truly are and how they can make a positive difference, in this case.

Immediately when looking at the Visualizing Health website page I could tell that this site is very advanced in its graphics and knew that the infographics it would present me would be very successful in its use of data presentation with visuals.

Its homepage is clear and shows where you can go to find more infographics on health data. After clicking on the wizard the site asks a couple questions based on what you are looking for. When you get passed the specifics it brings you to an array of different health infographics. I chose to look at infographics that show differences in risks between groups and doesn’t focus on exact numbers.

Above you can see all the different infographics this site provides as well as filters you can apply to the left. You can apply filters to narrow down your goal, health conditions you are researching, data you are looking for, and even what kind of form you would like to see the data in.

This site overall has very useful tools for not only those interested in infographics but those looking for easy and clear information on medical health.

My experience on Vizhealth.org developed a better understand of how beneficial visualization can be. This website was very clear, informative, and very user friendly. The website generates visualization designs for patients to understand in a quick and effective way, for doctors who are trying to communicate some complicated information. The primary goal is communication, and the “wizard” is available to explain the giving data with the best design options. Visualizations help lead to decisions and when facing health issues these visualizations below very helpful. The following video was published on their site, and explains how many different health concerns can be confusing. With this easily accessible visualization of health designed by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Michigan Center for Health Communications Research , is to give them a better understanding on the goal and the purpose.

I had no issues with the user-friendly navigation of the site and gained a lot of insight from the many ways of presenting data. This site explained to me that different goals or communication needs requires different designs and graphics for the reader to understand and grasp the concept. 

The “wizard” is an assistant in meeting communication needs, and meeting the goal when it involved risk information. It gives multiple ways to design the data, what is best and most comprehendible. With options to input data and edit for example, specific health conditions, different forms of cancer, and if you smoke or are overweight.

Allowing the doctor to input these different aspects and generate the basic idea with options. The ability to edit data and choose the best visualization, including the most relevant information will help assist in explanations. The patient understanding the data in the most effective way is the goal, and there are many options to choose from.  The gallery is available to see the best designs and displays a wide range of designs assisting in the determination of what visualization is best.

This tool rapidly generates results to choose from to assist in visualizing health issues. Making the patient have a better understand of the risks of their issues and what is the best approach to medications, treatments, and other medical decisions. Visualizing Health gives options for the primary communication goal, and the level of understand whether you want to give basic information or exact numbers. 

This site is beneficial to both doctors and patients when communicating life threatening sicknesses, medications, raise or lower concerns, and inform about the risks. The wide variety of helpful visualizations, and my overall experience with this scientifically vetted style guide for communicating health data was simple yet very informative. I grasped the concept of visualization in a more effective way, understanding the many possible ways to present data and how someone will interpret it based on the design.

Visualizing Health is a program that hopes to alleviate the burden put on healthcare professionals when they need to communicate information about a person’s data-rich bodies. Likewise, for individuals, it hopes to clear up what the numbers presented to them mean. Graphics can be a great way of visualizing this data, making it easier for both parties. However, not all visualizations are created equal.

The program beings with “The Wizard”. It only needs to know two things: what the graphic’s primary goal will be and whether or not exact statistics will be used in achieving that goal. From the selections made, the program sifts through its collection of 54 tested visualizations. It then returns the ones best suited to achieve one’s specific goal.

After the initial results, one can make further refinements through the selection of tags that take other factors into consideration. These include the type of data that is available, which specific health conditions are being looked at, and which type of graphic is desired. The selection of more tags yields recommendations better suited for one’s topic and purpose.

Each graphic appears to adhere well to the principles of good chart design that have been explored so far through class assignments. The data is well presented with appropriate, attractive graphs and color schemes, and there is no “chart junk”. Rather, every element has its specific purpose. As these graphics were designed with the medical field in mind, this would be expected.

When it is a matter of a person’s health, there is no benefit in making information ambiguous or hard to follow. The health conditions that Visualizing Health focuses on – cancers, diseases, genetic disorders – are grave topics. Often matters of life or death, the more effective one can be in communicating data about these conditions, the better. Visualizing Health, therefore, provides an immense service to healthcare professionals and patients alike.

However, its utility does not end there. Its expertise in data visualization can extend beyond the field of medicine. As mentioned, many of the principles used in the graphics were introduced before Visualizing Health. They are universal, in a sense, and can apply to any discipline. Every graphic can benefit from the ideals of conciseness, eye appeal, and a “less is more” mindset. What’s more, there is the matter of finding the right visual. Through practice with this program, and with help from “The Wizard”, these tasks become less taxing, making one’s visuals all the more effective.

From my initial experience with the website called Visualizing Health which is a developed project founded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and University Michigan center for health communications research. They created various examples of tested visualizations of health information that effectively present audiences with detailed and complex data, however they display it to be easily comprehended when using the appropriate resources. In doing so they also allowed other individuals to use various graphics, tables, and charts to present data and successfully meet the needs of the presenter and

One very major asset that allows this website to work so well is a formula called the wizard that ask you through multiple choice questions designed to match the type of graphic you want and the specific needs you have for the data. Wow meeting in this test the questions seen complex and we’re hard to visualize however they are examples and break down oh the specific type of “risk” you were trying to communicate allowed me to better understand the specific need I was looking for. After the two questions they bring you to a filters which allows you to choose various categories that narrow down your search more distinctively to find the best fit for your data. I like it it’s taking your data and matching it to the correct graphic that will display the data you were trying to present. Once you choose a specific graphic that you wish to use it also gives you a detailed summary of the design and how you can appropriately use this example in your own form of visual data. I like this I because it gives you more information and awareness of the specific data you are using and working down it’s benefits and accuracy in communication risk when properly formulated.

Overall I think this website could be useful for many individuals with the various topics such as health, education, politics, mathematics etc. to effectively show their audiences visual data that supports the information they are presenting. I would recommend this app to anyone who want to present complex yet simple visual graphics and data to easily allow their audiences to understand the information.

The wizard is a simple, easy-to-understand presentation that offers a demonstration to the user on what and how they should display any statistics on a graph.

The questions that are asked in the setup of the graphic design allows the user to construction their information. This will direct them on how they want to deliver data to their viewer in the best format (graph), color scheme, and direct point to interest and attract the reader.

Customizing the graphs give the user creative power to put forth their best graphic design to captivate their audience. The title has to be precise in what it wants the viewer to know and the information has to come fast to draw their attention to make them aware of what is needed to inform the reader.