I met with Caroline today and we focused on ways we could reinterpret the points we had plotted on the map. We were inspired by the look of a heat map and the ways in which the points of are shown as seen below.
We wanted to show the trends in pricing of apartments by doing something similar with our points. We first imported our map into photoshop and using different layers for each color, plotted our points using glowing colors indicating pricing. One of the main points of criticism we received in class was that our colors made more expensive apartments look 'bad' because of the intense red we used. By changing our color scheme, there isn't a sense of good or bad, but rather to show a difference in pricing. We also needed to think of ways to effectively utilize the negative space of the map and clearly show where key locations such as WPI and Becker are located in relation to the housing. This is what we came up with.
We decided to create lines going down each street that blend the colors of the points. We will extrapolate in areas where there aren't as many points but we will show where places are more densely populated by the thickness of the lines. This will give more information to the user of the map between pricing and WPI student population density. It will also be easier to see because of the continuity of information being shown on the map. We will be adding a key and we're also thinking about adding some more information including tools to 'jump off campus' and some landlords people really like. I am meeting with Professor DeWinter today to get some more feedback so we can finalize our map later today!
I really like the heat map! It looks simplified, and I remember reading that people like maps because it maps the world feel simple, and thus easier to understand. I am not sure how to interpret the other map. The colors do not hold any significance and the different depictions of the to colleges are confusing to me. The map might flow better if instead the names of the colleges were written in large letters over the top. I think the background of the map might look more appealing if it was not grey. The thing that catches my eyes are the dots, but the background is equally as important. I’m not sure if adding tools to ‘jump off campus’ will be helpful. In some ways, I feel like that is its own map in and off itself.
ReplyDeleteI wish we could've made a legitimate looking heat map, but because our data was a bit too all over the place, this became really difficult to do. We definitely steered away from the plotted points in our first draft which were difficult to interpret and we focused on ways to reinterpret that data. I hope you like the final draft!
DeleteGreat job with your maps so far! I am curious, are you using Excel to make the heat maps or some other program? I know we used Excel's power mapping tool during our Business Communication class with Professor Faber. Although I think a couple people mentioned the color scheme on Caroline's blog posts, I think that the green and red colors are easier to understand than the second pink, purple, green, and blue color scheme, especially if you equate red with expensive areas and green with less expensive areas. I guess it depends on personal preference and previous experience with maps. Maybe look at some references such as Trulia's wealth heatmap which shows something similar!
ReplyDeleteWe didn't end up fully pursuing the heat map idea but I'll definitely look into that Excel tool in the future especially since I'm taking a class entirely on excel next term! We also definitely got mixed feedback on which colors to use so we ended up sticking with the pink, purple, green, and blue tones. I think it works well with our more simplified and structured map though!
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