Storyboard

For the storyboard, I created a shorthand page. I published the storyboard privately on Shorthand and it can be accessed on the following link:

Shorthand Storyboard

When I move on to my final version of the project, I will work on a copy of the draft so the link above should stay the same and not change with the changes I make for Part 3. I really liked using shorthand to create a website to tell a story with my data. I think shorthand is very useful for informative presentations such as this one. It also allows you to continously update it which is nice.

Wireframe

For the vizualizations in my project I used Canva and Tableau to create them. Canva graphs were much easier to naviagte than Tableau ones. I think the issues I faced with Tableau was due to the fact that the Excel sheet had to be perfect in order for Tableau to understand it. To get my tableu to work I had to create a new Excel document for each of my graphics, the data could not be in one Excel document or in one Excel document with multiple sheets. I went into my data and individually separeted and created new mini datasets.

Furthermore, some of my data points came from published researched essays so there way no downloadable dataset but rather information within the essay that I took out and found a way to visualize.

One of the challenges I faced when making my visualizations was trying to use piecharts for everything. I ended up using piecharts for most of my data visualizations because I could not think of a better way to present the data. I think data such as percentages of a whole are best represented with piecharts. I tried doing packed bubbles chart for some of the data but it did not make sense. I also tried doing a treemap but it made the data come across discontected and made it hard to compare.

Part 2 Project TSWD by Natalia Hernandez Berrios

For my canva graphics, most of the data came from published works such as research analyzing the economy. Then information about immigrants contribution in taxes was reference in many different credible websites so I took that information and made it into a graphic. Canva graphs were pretty easy to navigate and create. I liked how they also gave you many options to transform your data from one type to another. I included two graphics for the information on how many undocumented people are part of the immigrant population because I was not sure which graphic type would look better/get the point across better. I tried a bargraph because I am already using many piecharts to visualize other data.

User research

Target audience

General Public - My target audience is the general public because I feel like issues of immigration are not well known by the public. I also think there is a lot of misinformation surrounding migration and undocumented people and my hope with this project is to shine light on the true facts. I want more people to know about this topic and begin to care about it because it is a human issue. The data and stories in my project are information anyone can understand and learn.

Policy and Education Professionals - My other target audience are policy and education professionals. I am targeting these two groups because they are at the forefront of policy issues and because they may interact more with undocumented people than the general public. Policy professionals need to know about this key issue because it surrounds and impacts many policies such as economic, social, and equity policies. Education professionals are crucial in addressing the challenges faced by undocumented individuals, particularly students enrolled in primary, secondary, or tertiary education. The impacts of immigration policies on undocumented students can significantly affect their mental and academic well-being, even if they choose not to disclose their status. Issues such as access to financial aid, internships, and other opportunities can hinder their educational journey. Given their pivotal role, educators should be well-informed about immigration policies and the challenges their students may encounter, especially for educators in immigrant heavy areas, ensuring they can provide appropriate support and advocacy.

My first two interviewees are master policy students. I chose policy students as they have been learning about how policies work, how they are passed, and are future policymakers and people who will work in the policy realm. Additionally, one of the interviewees has worked a few years in D.C. so they have been around policy a little more. My last interviewee is a secondary teacher who falls into the category of educational professionals. I am interested in the educational professional’s input and seeing if someone who is not in policy and closer to the broader general public understands the topic and feels like they can do something about it.

Interviewee 1: 24 year old male master’s policy student
Interviewee 2: 24 year old female master’s policy student, worked 2 years in D.C.
Interviewee 3: 22 year old male secondary teacher

Interview script

Goal	Questions to Ask
Make sure my topic is clear	What is the topic about?
Make sure my topic is telling a story	Is there enough human connection for the topic? Does it feel data heavy or is it a good balance?
Are the viz’s clear?	What did you think of the data visualizations? Are they easy to understand?
Connectedness	Do the data visualizations connect to the topic?
Clear topic	After looking over the presentation do you think you have a better understanding of the topic?
Clear Call to Action	After looking over the presentation do you feel like you have concrete steps you can take to help the issue?
Clear up any confusions for the final project	What questions were you left with? Is there anything that was confusing?

Interview findings

Questions	Interview 1	Interview 2	Interview 3
What is the topic about?	The topic is about undocumented populations living in the U.S. without proper pathways to citizenship despite contributions to the economy and society.	Undocumented immigrants in the US	The impact of undocumented immigrants and the importance of improved immigration reform in the United States.
Is there enough human connection for the topic? Does it feel data heavy or is it a good balance?	Primarily data-centric. There is one human-centered video, but that’s overlooked by graphs. Suggestion for more human connection, make the connection more clear.	There’s a good amount of data but the data surrounds people so it feels connected to people	Yes, the information presented felt as if it was presenting an important message with data to back it up instead of the other way around. Maybe adding more quotes from people would be good.
What did you think of the data visualizations? Are they easy to understand?	Easy to understand. The map “Where do undocumented immigrants settle in the U.S?” is a bit wonky, however. Maybe make the map static rather than giving it the option to zoom in or out.	For the graph on undocumented population, it would be good to do a stacked bar and different colors for each population rather than 3 different graphs. It would be good to include the key on the piechart rather than on the side.	The visualizations were easy to understand. Some of the pieces felt there was too much open space and the legend was small. In the section about current immigration policies, it feels like the information is too condensed, space it out so it feels easier to comprehend and read. On the map showing the undocumented populations in each state, is there information you can include about the projected impact undocumented people have on the US GDP?
Do the data visualizations connect to the topic?	They do.	Yes they do, they fit well with the story.	Yes, they connect to the topic and are utilized extremely well
After looking over the presentation do you think you have a better understanding of the topic?	Indeed!	I do	Yes
After looking over the presentation do you feel like you have concrete steps you can take to help the issue?	Very big-picture steps. Any chance to include community-oriented suggestions to help (i.e. volunteering at a local organization/community center that helps undocumented people. Is there a database that lets you include your zipcode and it pops up with ‘local immigrant assistance centers’ near you or something like that?)	Yes, I think the call to action is very actionable.	Yes, there are multiple ways I can help that are included.
What questions were you left with? Is there anything that was confusing?	The section “The Immigrant Population is just a Fraction…” is unclear whether the statistics refer to undocumented people or immigrants in general (i.e. those with green cards, visas, etc.) at least in the pie chart. Nothing confusing but primarily narrow in depiction of immigrants.	No questions, but that may be due to the fact that I’m pretty familiar with the topic surrounding undocumented immigrants.	For the graphics, I would try to make them fit better on the page, also it would be good to make the legend be in descending order rather than ascending

On my question of whether there was enough human connection for the topic some intervewees felt like it was data heavy and need more human stories to connect the data. Then another interviewee said that there is a lot of data but since the data talks about people and the explanations will connect to people they felt like it was okay. One user suggested to try and add more pull quotes to connect the data to a more human experience. I think the differnece in response can also be attributed to each users background and experience with data and storytelling. The interviewee that felt that my story was too data heavy was an english major, I think thinking about this background is necessary for me to know what the next steps are.

All my users said that the data visualizaitons were easy to understand. They then suggested smaller details I could add or change to make it even more clearer or user friendly.

My users all felt like my data visualizations connected to the topic well and felt like they had a better understanding of this topic after reading my presentation. I asked these questions becuase I wanted to make sure that someone who had never come across this topic before would understand what it is about and would understand the data that is with it.

For the call to action there was mixed feedback. 2 of my 3 interviewees did feel like there was concrete steps they could take right after the presentation. One of the interviwees felt like there was steps but they were a bit too broad. He suggested included more community based steps such as volunteering at a local org that helps undocumented poeple.

Identified changes for Part III

Research synthesis	Anticipated changes for Part III
Human connection is almost there	In my final project, I will try to include more flushed out information about real immigrants experiences and try to add more concrete examples, also I will try to diversify my videos (the one I have just highlights mostly Latinos and not other ethnicities/races of undocumented people
Canva graphics on undocumented population	I will try and play around with the visualizations a bit more and see whether a stacked bar chart, piechart, or bar chart is better. I need to find a way to represent the immigrant population inside the total U.S population and the undocumented population inside of that.
For all visualizations	I need to make the titles and legend larger. The legend needs to be in descending order rather than ascending. I also need to make the graphic fit whitin shorthand, right now you have to scroll to see the whole data viz.
Call to Action	Include how people could volunteer or work with CASA which is an immigrant organizations most states have (this would address the point that one of my users made to make the call to action more local community based
Immigration Policies Section	Condense or summarize the information. Basically make it shorter so the viewer does not feel super overwhelmed by all the bullet points and information.

Overall I feel pretty good place with my storyboard and wireframes. I feel better now with the suggestions of my users and how I can better the data visualizations. I think making the changes provided above will make my project more cohesive. I also want to note that I decided to keep my topic broad because by making it broad and including a lot of different information I am achieving my goal of informing the public well about this issue and trying to go against biases or perceived notions of the undocumented population.

References

American Immigration Council. (2016, July 18). Adding Up the Billions in Tax Dollars Paid by Undocumented Immigrants. American Immigration Council. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/adding-billions-tax-dollars-paid-undocumented-immigrants Center For Migration Studies. (n.d.). State Tool: Center for Migration Studies. Data.cmsny.org. http://data.cmsny.org/Defining Undocumented. (2023). IMMIGRANTS RISING. https://immigrantsrising.org/resource/defining-undocumented/ Map the Impact of Immigration: U.S. Economic Data & Numbers [MAP] - New American Economy. (n.d.). Data.americanimmigrationcouncil.org. https://data.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/map-the-impact/Migration Policy Institute. (2015, August 18). Unauthorized Immigrant Populations by Country and Region, Top States and Counties of Residence, 2012-16. Migrationpolicy.org. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/unauthorized-immigrant-populations-country-and-region-top-state-and-county Peri, G., & Zaiour, R. (2021, June 14). Citizenship for Undocumented Immigrants Would Boost U.S. Economic Growth. Center for American Progress; Center for American Progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/citizenship-undocumented-immigrants-boost-u-s-economic-growth/ Rouse, C., Barrow, L., Rinz, K., & Soltas, E. (2021, September 17). The Economic Benefits of Extending Permanent Legal Status to Unauthorized Immigrants. The White House; The White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/09/17/the-economic-benefits-of-extending-permanent-legal-status-to-unauthorized-immigrants/

Hernandez-Berrios-Portfolio