Assignment 10: Multivariant Visual

Multivariant Visual

For our final assignment for this intersession, our class was to create a multi-variant visual that combined the different types of visuals we learned in class. The requirements were to include a mind map, explanation graphic, charts, graphs, and a process diagram. Since the topic was of our choosing, I decided to do something I would like and where I already knew I could easily find information on so I picked skiing in Vermont. Most of the information required was the mountains website however some information was gather from another website I use for snow information or general information I gathered from years of skiing. The first element I did was the explanation graphic which was to show each mountains location within Vermont. The interesting pattern that emerged out of this was how the mountains clearly showed the spine of the Green Mountains that run through Vermont. While not really shown within the multi-variant visual itself, I used a mind map of skiing to decide what are important factors within a mountain that a skier would look at. While I had many branches, the four important quantitative ones I came up with where that of snowfall, lift ticket price, vertical, and trail count. Next, using the list as my base, I created four graphs of information that a skier would find important for skiing such as snowfall, lift ticket prices, the vertical, and number of trails on the mountain. I tried to keep these graphs lined up with the mountain list so the viewer could compare the different elements as a whole but also quickly find information for only one particular mountain. Once again, due to the organization being based on geographic location from north to south, certain patterns emerged such as the snow fall chart which snowed more snow in the northern resorts compared to the southern resorts and the vertical graph which showed an almost cross section like visual of the Green Mountains. Under each of these graphs I included charts which arranged the data from highest to lowest which would make it easier for the viewer to find the most and least of the information. In order to make the graphs and charts read as one for the same topic I included a very faint bar of color that connected the chart and graph so the information could be read separately from topic to topic. While the charts and graphs were used to explain the quantitative data, I used a process chart to show the qualitative elements that came out of the mind map for the resorts that could not really be expressed within charts and graphs. The chart shows certain characteristics found within resorts such as, family resort, terrain parks, and challenging terrain, and then showed mountains that had this characteristic. This was to be seen as something that allowed the viewer to quickly choose a mountain without having to look through all the data within the charts and graphs.

Overall I found this assignment to be very fun but much more work than any previous assignment. Not only did we have to do multiple charts, graphs, and visuals but since a multi-variant display was to show an overall idea, I felt that the layout and transition between different visual was very important to create a cohesive multi-vartiant display. As a final assignment for the class, I felt this assignment tested me on all the information I learned within this short semester into one complete package.