| Home Page | Data Vizualizations Examples | Critique by Design | Final Project I | Final Project II | Final Project III |
Shorthand Link: https://preview.shorthand.com/FSuLeGuMBl4jFkSt
People in the 25–30 age range occupy a unique and transitional stage of life. They are typically early in their careers, juggling increasing professional responsibilities while still navigating personal identity, relationships, and lifestyle choices. This demographic is also one of the most digitally immersed, having grown up during the rise of smartphones, social media, and constant online connectivity.
Opening: “Thanks for helping! I’m collecting feedback on a story + visualizations about reading bahits are getting affected by our social media usage. There are no right or wrong answers.”
Phase 1: Warm-up
Which social media platforms do you use the most?
How much time do you spend daily?
Phase 2: Storyboard Feedback
Did the story resonate with your experience? Why or why not?
Was anything confusing or hard to connect to?
Phase 3: Visualization Feedback
Which visualization was easiest to understand? Why?
Which one was most confusing?
Did any background images feel distracting?
Phase 4: Behavior Reflection
After reading it, do you feel motivated to change your social media habits? Why or why not?
Closing: “Thank you for your valuable feedback and time! Is there anything else you want to add?”
| Goal | Questions to Ask |
|---|---|
| Understand how users emotionally experience the story and connect with it | What part of the story made you feel the strongest reaction? Why?, Did the narrative resonate with your experience?, Did anything feel confusing, overwhelming, or hard to connect to emotionally? |
| Assess how users interpret and understand the data visualisations | Which visualization was the easiest to understand? Why?, Which one confused the most?, Were you able to understand the emotion bubble chart at a glance? |
| Get insights on whether the narrative flows smoothly from section to section | Did the story feel cohesive and connected as you scrolled?, Was there any point where you felt lost or unsure why a section was included?, Where did your attention peak and dip throughout the story? |
| Understand what actions or changes the story motivates | After reading, do you feel motivated to change your social media habits? Why or why not?, Would you consider setting boundaries or tracking your usage more consciously?, What would help you take concrete next steps? |
| To understand what works and doesn’t for the design | Did you like the theme?, How did the color scheme work for you?, Did the background images become overwhelming at any time? |
| Questions | Interview 1 | Interview 2 | Interview 3 | Interview 4 | Interview 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Did the narrative resonate with your experience? | Really liked the snappy title, peaks interest and makes people want to read further | The title felt “attacking” as they could relate to it too much and made them reflect on their usage | The overall narrative was very interesting they did not ever realise to look at reading books from the lens of social media affecting it | The narrative captured a tension they often felt wanting to read more but instinctively reaching for Instagram or Twitter because they’re emotionally stimulating and easy to access | They found the narrative resonating but were also aware of the fact that some of the age-group differences felt less directly relatable because everyone in their circle uses social media differently |
| Did anything feel confusing, overwhelming, or hard to connect to emotionally? | No, they found the story very relatable and easy to follow | The personal data that I mentioned on one of the pages was mistaken by them as some facts taken off the internet, which I had to clarify to them later in our discussion | Overall it was clear, but they got slightly confused during the transition from age-group data to platform-specific emotional analysis. They understood both sections individually, but the jump felt a bit abrupt | The visuals were easy to interpret, but they found the emotional reactions chart a bit dense at first glance | Emotionally, they connected with the content, but they weren’t sure whose perspective the emotional data represented: mine, a larger sample, or general research findings |
| Which visualisation was the easiest to understand? Why? | The platform Maptree was the easiest as they could clearly see Instagram was taking the most amount of time out of all the platforms | The platform Maptree was the most intuitive for them as the color scheme matched the actual platform theme, which made the connection easy to establish | They really liked the bar graphs as they were easy to follow, the legend and labels were helpful | The age-group bar chart was the easiest for them as the layout was familiar as it is most commonly used everywhere | The horizontal bar charts were super easy for them as the differences in height made the trends obvious at a glance and required almost no interpretation |
| Which one confused the most? | The emotion bubble chart was too cluttered and overwhelmed them | The emotion bubble chart made them try the hardest to understand and wasn’t explicitly intuitive at all | The emotion bubble chart made them ask more questions, which showed it was not easily interpretable | The illustrated data mentioned in “My Key Data Points” was confusing and could have had better flow | The transition from the personal data to the broader emotional-platform chart was confusing they weren’t sure at first whether the emotions were based on your experience or a larger dataset, which made it harder to interpret the visualization confidently |
| Did the background images become overwhelming at any time? | Yes, the background images on text-heavy pages made the readability poor | The color scheme was not consistent in all the backgrounds, and it felt less flowing into another section | No, they really liked how I tried to have relatable background images in for each section, which made the insights stand out | At a few points the background image drew their attention more than the text and they had to pause and refocus because the contrast wasn’t strong enough, especially when the text was long | The images themselves were relevant, but some of them felt too visually busy |
| After reading, do you feel motivated to change your social media habits? Why or why not? | Yes, they actually did. Seeing the minutes laid out visually made them realize how much time they waste without noticing | Maybe, it definitely made them more aware and made them think about their habits, but it was not enough for them to make immediate changes | Yes, especially seeing the emotional triggers made them realize they scroll more when they felt anxious or bored, which is something they want to work on | Maybe, the narrative definitely made them reflect, but breaking habits is tough and they were not sure how feasible it was for them | Not really, the information was interesting and relatable, but they felt their social media use was manageable |
| Research synthesis | Anticipated changes for Part III |
|---|---|
| Most people resonated with the narrative and tension around reading vs. scrolling. But one participant felt the title was “attacking” and too personally confronting | Making the title maintain impact without feeling accusatory and mindful of all sentiments |
| The emotion bubble chart was consistently the most confusing across interviews. Words like “cluttered,” “dense,” and “not intuitive” came up repeatedly | Either redesign the bubble chart into a simpler, more comfortable format or remove it entirely. I need to analyse if it makes sense to keep it |
| Some readers liked the relatable backgrounds, but others found them distracting, inconsistent, or overwhelming on text-heavy pages | For text-heavy pages I need to switch to solid or lightly textured backgrounds with stronger contrast and also establish one consistent color palette across sections |
| Several interviewees said the transitions—especially from personal data → age-group data → emotional-platform analysis felt abrupt or confusing. Some weren’t sure whose emotions or data were being represented: mine, general findings, or the data | I will add short transition statements between sections to guide the reader and I am also considering adding a clear label at the start of each visualization indicating the data source |
My aim with Part III will be to ensure balance, clarity, and engagement by simplifying visuals, maintaining consistent design, and clearly guiding the reader through transitions, preserving the narrative’s impact while making it approachable for all audiences.
Here’s my Moodboard: https://www.canva.com/design/DAG5ioGJMfc/I7VcfxONKUlJdFkSRd6pVA/edit?utm_content=DAG5ioGJMfc&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton
I also want to acknowledge the use of Microsoft Copilot in helping me structure my ideas more coherently and helping me ideate over several questions that I could ask to make the most out of my user interviews.