Google Reputation Tracker

An overview of the primary dashboards.

Creative Brief

Crafted Product

🔗

Link to → Invision mockup The Google Reputation Tracker is an internal dashboard for Google. For that reason, I can't provide a link to the final site. However, I have provided a description of the approach I used to develop Concepts & Blueprints.

Goal

Similar to other Ipsos collaborations, such as the DHA Atlas and the World Cup dashboard, this interactive prototype allows users at Google to explore sentiment in social media about Google products and leadership. Main issues will also be highlighted.

Role

👋

My roles: Art Direction & Data Visualization

Graphicacy: Jeff Osborn & Shing-Yun Chiang (information designer)
Ipsos: Social media data, text analysis

Process

Discovery

Observations

👀

This project was part of a series of collaboration between Graphicacy and Ipsos. In each case, the aesthetics relied upon the client needs and also their branding. Google has an especially vivid brand, which we drew upon. The card-based approach was implemented in case Google wanted a customizeablwe, modular dashboard. This did affect the open aesthetics Google is renowned for in the initial dashboard concepts.

👂

I wasn't present for the in-person Discovery sessions; I was instead responsible for Concepts and the Blueprint to be implemented later in the process.

📊

The data was provided by Ipsos, from social media commentary about Google. The Ipsos approach is documented here. Ipsos analyzed the text to create further taxonomies. These include:

Velocity: The number of social media posts per day
Volume
Correlation
Sentiment (emotion)

🖍️

I wasn't part of the in-person Discovery process, and there weren't Discovery Sketches to work from. However, I was able to develop Concepts based on the information I did have from the Discovery process.

Concepts → Blueprint

Approach

I created a tilemap to even out geographic discrepancies between small and large states. Users can click on tiles to read more details about each state and the social media conversations fueling an average sentiment score. Emotions can also be tracked on this dashboard over time, and broken down according to volume and velocity. Rounding out this view of the dashboard: top products and shared stories. I added sparklines, similar to what one sees in stock exchange graphics, to help readers see the trends in top stories at a glance.

This view takes a look at the main issues. Users can change the issues and use an accordion sidebar to further define the visualization. An overall trend is shown, along with breakdowns of author types and political affiliations.

Feedback from Google

Google dashboard - feedback for Graphicacy.pdf270.6KB

Blueprint

Often in design, and in writing, my first drafts appear heavy. I need to distill the text and lighten the visual weight of the design. This revised Blueprint, based on feedback from Google, has a lightness that works well. We noted that the red-green tilemap is not optimal for color-blind readers and not part of Google's branded colors. But this does appear to be a Blueprint: the design without all the final design integrated.

Reflection

💭

This project, along with the other Ipsos collaborations, sparked my interest in data visualization based on text analysis. Part of my interest here is academic, as I'm an avid reader of fiction and non-fiction, and I'm curious how to bridge the gap from data to literary analysis. At the same time, I have ethical concerns about this type of tracking. These projects gave me an inside view into the ethics of designing with data today.