An overview of the dashboard's primary pages and interactives.
" Josh and Jeff, On JOES Political Atlas. WOWZA. It is stunning. Thank you very much. What the team has done has positioned Libby Snow, my deputy on the JOES project, to present this to the DHA client next Thursday in person. I think the client is going to be thrilled. Well done. Thank you. Bob" — email from Bob Ksiazek, Ipsos, September 19, 2019
Creative Brief
Crafted Product
The DHA Atlas is an internal dashboard for the Defense Health Agency of the U.S. government. For that reason, I can't provide a link to the final site. However, I have provided descriptions of how users navigate the site and the site requirements.
Goal
The text below is adapted from the Graphicacy agreement with the client:
- Deliver an interactive dashboard that allows the U.S. Defense Health Agency (DHA) to explore and understand their patient experiences via social media data.
- Build on a past experience, the Canadian Atlas Political Atlas, to deliver a refined and engaging dashboard for the DHA.
- Create a straightforward design that meets the requirements of the project.
- Users can export data from all pages in csv, pdf, and png formats so that the data can be used for specific purposes and settings.
Role
My roles: Art Direction, Data Visualization, UX Design
- Graphicacy: Jeff Osborn & Chris Lanoue (lead developer)
- Ipsos (partner, responsible for the social media data and text analytics)
- Defense Health Agency (end client)
Process
Discovery
Observations
For these types of dashboards, it's vital to communicate honesty through the design choices. Extra decorative touches distract from that message. There needs to be a high pixel-to-data ratio. The dashboard needs to be clean and minimal—yet wireframed to present complex information in an easy-to-navigate format.
Graphicacy conducted a one-hour in-person meeting with the client. As the design lead for the Concepts, Blueprint, and Prototype, I was not present for the Discovery phase. But I used the insights gathered during discovery in my work.
The social media data, which was gathered and structured by Ipsos, is about veterans' experiences with their healthcare at DHA hospital facilities around the U.S. The dashboard helps users explore the data and assists in creating priorities and allocating resources to improve the patient care experience.
From the Graphicacy agreement:
"Graphicacy will work through two rounds of wireframing and design mockups that will yield a blueprint for the final development and production phase."
Concepts → Blueprints
Concepts
DHA Atlas Concepts.pdf1184.4KB
Blueprints
Main page: Map
- By default, the map will show all facilities colored by overall ranking toward the facility.
- On the default map, all facilities will have either icons/colors representing each service (air force, army, navy). Hovering over the facility will provide the following:
- Name of the Facility
- Service Name
- Overall Facility Rating (Current, %Up/Down last month)
- Overall Provider Rating (Current, %Up/Down last month)
- Top PX Category for this Facility + nSample (Current Only)
- Worst PX Category for this Facility + nSample (Current Only)
- Clicking on the facility will take you to “facility view”
- Clicking on a selected state will take you to “State View” or “Network View”
- Map marks can take you to the facility view, which includes:
- Picture of the Facility
- Commanding Officer of the Facility (TBD)
- # of Encounters per Facility
- # of Reviews this Month (% Change of Reviews a month before)
Facility View
Facility View – clicking on this tab allows users to see Facility-specific information
- Facility – Defaults to Facility Ranking Map
- Provider – Defaults to Provider Ranking Map
- Encounters – Defaults to the number of Facility Encounters
- Reviews – Defaults to the number of Facility Reviews
- Current – defaults to either (current facility/provider ranking or #of encounters/reviews)
- 30 Day Change – shows changes in ranking for facility/providers or #of encounters/reviews for the last 30 days.
- PX Categories Drop-Down Menu (TBD)
- Multiple PX categories (e.g. facility cleanliness)
- Facility Lookup
- Typing in the facility name will zoom you directly to that facility on the map. The facility should be searchable by the official name, common name, or DMIS ID.
- Filter Stripe
- Allows filtering by worst to best-ranked facilities.
Facility Patient Experience View
Facility PX Sunburst:
- Hovering on a component of PX Sunburst brings up a text box with the following components:
- Net sentiment associated with selected PX Experience
- Number of reviews for the selected PX Experience
- Last Review on the Selected PX Experience
- Date of the Review
- Clicking on a component of PX Sunburst will take you to a detailed view of the selected PX
- Bar Charts for Top 3-4 PX Categories
- Shows Breakdown of #of reviews by top categories
- Shows Net Sentiment for 3-4 top PX Categories
- Clicking on a particular category will take you to:
- Name of the PX Category
- Number of Reviews Per Month (Percentage Change Since Last Month)
- Number of Reviewers
- Line chart of Net Sentiment for Selected PX Category for the last 6 months
- Line Chart showing performance of this facility vs other facilities of the same size vs. within the same state
- A Table View of Each Review
- Can be sorted from Most Recent to Oldest.
- Can be sorted by Net Sentiment.
- For each Review, you will see what type of PX Categories are being discussed.
- For each Review, you will see the assigned sentiment.
Reflection
These types of dashboards exercise the analytic side of the mind, and they're all about designing for honesty. This means the final product functions as a tool. Even though its aesthetics should be minimal and unobtrusive, aesthetics still matter. They help to relax the user, so they may see all the possible ways they can use the dashboard.
A stressed-out user, meanwhile, often feels that way because an overly complicated experience created confusion in their mind. I believe the final dashboard met the client's needs, while at the same time, I learned about the positive use of social media data and text analysis to improve healthcare for veterans.