Youth homelessness in King County
The goal of this project was to research an aspect of homelessness and use that research to create three information design pieces informing an audience about the significance of the topic. The three applications were to be a high level dashboard providing quick information, a set of detailed information posters, and a video.
Research
My research focused on the state of youth homelessness in King County. I researched with a team, and our research looked for contributing factors and common situations faced by youth experiencing homelessness.
A significant element of Seattle's homelessness situation is the effect of middle and upper class individuals moving to Seattle, as well as the continually growing tech industry. Because of this, I chose to tailor my research toward answering questions that people in this demographic might have when moving to or learning about Seattle.
Application One: Dashboard
After compiling a research document with my research team, I took the information I had learned and compiled data to create a dashboard that would provide quick, high level information about youth homelessness.
This step was a major learning experience on the topic of successful information design. I had a lot of information to work with, and I had to figure out how to sort through it in order to effectively present it to my audience.
Additionally, issues of hierarchy, flow, and color codification emerged and had to be dealt with. I took these lessons in order to apply them to future applications in this project.
Application Two: Poster Set
The next application was a two poster set, which had to provide a detailed narrative reinforced with data. The posters had to function both together and separately, so I focused one on the state of youth homelessness in King County, and the other on King County's efforts to reduce homelessness.
This step showed me the importance of contextualizing and organizing information. Working with my initial research showed me that the data I had was not focused enough, and I had to go back and do more specific research that would work together and support itself. I wanted the posters to put the data first, and make the visuals secondary to showing how each piece of the information related to the others.
Doing more intentional research allowed me to create a structured narrative and give the posters a logical sequence of information. However, because of the amount of information and the poster format, I found it challenging to present all the relevant information in a way that naturally flowed and guided the reader.
Application Three: Video
The third step of the project was to present my research and narrative in a motion application. The video I created presented the same narrative as the posters, but in a more linear, guided medium.
Because the information was largely the same as the previous step, I was able to focus on the hierarchy and ordering of information. This was noticeably easier than it was on the poster. Since it was a video, it was far easier to present information in the way I wanted and guide the viewer through the narrative. Because of this, I felt it was much easier to say what I was trying to say. The primary challenges were timing and determining exactly how much information I needed to include.
These sketches show parts of the process, including determining how to present different pieces of information, figuring out how to piece data together to form a narrative, and layout sketches to determine the overall look of the posters and videos.
