By: Chelsea Goddard
Graphicacy helps mission-driven organizations make data more visual, persuasive, and shareable. Recently, they worked with the Center for American Progress to map childcare deserts across the country. They defined childcare deserts as census tracts where there are more than three times as many children as licensed child care providers.
Our assumption is that power users and policy experts are going to stay on the page longer if we make exploring the data more engaging and interactive. -Eduardo Velez, Senior Front-end developer
Graphicacy used Studio and GL JS, our web API, to design the map and create an interactive experience. Users can “fly to” a state and explore the distribution of health care centers, as well as census tracts styled to represent “desert” and “non-desert” locations. A pop-up menu updates as you hover over the map features.
The feature support and documentation for GL JS made it an easy choice for adding interactivity. Mapbox Studio gave our designers full creative control so we could try different colors, adjust the presentation of layers, style labels, etc. all without relying on a developer. -William Merrow, Data Analyst & Visualization Specialist
Graphicacy also developed a data tool in partnership with the Public Policy Institute of California. It links a map with interactive charts so policymakers can explore how changes to housing costs, minimum wage, and the social safety net could affect child poverty statewide and at the county level.
One early design decision was to present a map and bar chart together, displaying the same information. Choropleth maps are good at showing geographic patterns, but bar charts and line charts are better at communicating the actual data values and the distribution of a dataset.We needed to create an interaction between the map and bar chart to help the user understand that the two are connected. -William Merrow, Data Analyst & Visualization Specialist
The visualization was built as an Angular/RxJS app, incorporating D3.js and GL JS so the map is reactive to user interactions with the bar chart.
Learn more about using our tools for data visualization or create an account and get started with Studio. If your organization is using our location platform for positive social and environmental change, get in touch with our Community team.
Interactive policy maps from Graphicacy was originally published in Points of interest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.