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Process Work & Self Reflection

1. Inspiration

https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVOa8npwk=/?invite_link_id=615498748893

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I initially decided on making a Visualization for a special food, the process of decision making was

messy and struggling. I later found out a lot of different good work of design showing a fantastic

visualized effect. However, most of them requires a lot of careful and in-depth research, as well as

elaborate illustrations & icon design. It usually takes people months to make a elaborate data visualization and I tried to find a in-between topic to make my work, which with a in-depth research and thesis, as well as a relative short work-time demand.

I later figured out my problem-- the reason that I couldn't make a final decision of what to make is probably because that I have not yet done enough research. I later tried to do as much research as I can. However, even though I found a lot of data, it is still hard for me to set up my theme. There is another reason why I could not do so -- all the data I am having now is superficial and linear, they were usually from a report that has beeen made by others, they are not critical, and most of them do not seem to be conceiving. The solution at this point became that I have to focus on one big theme and then start my research from that.

Even though I did not use all of the research I did, I categorized them in theme and I decided to save them in the subpage in Project3 so I can find them easily, just in case I will need to use them later :)

I finally found my ideal example of data from Federica Fragapane, I love the way she choose to perform the ingredients of different food and the way she compare. I later decided to do a similar work, and my focuse of the work would be to compare which food is more healthy to have. Delivery food such as uber eats is very popular in China especially among young people. There are a lot of young people love to eat takeaways, including me. As a result, I decided to create a special way, helping people better recognize whether a food is healthy or not.

2. Food system building

The compounds in a food is countless. I decidede to have the 3 prodominant compounds: Carbonhydrate, protein and fat to illlustrate how healthy a food could be. As what I found in the research of Chinese diet, it is said that there are a lot of people gaining weight and disease because of having too much salt or sugar. I would like to contain them all in my visualization too.

I selected the TOP10 popular takeaways on the app to inspect how healthy they are.

To calculate the data, I decided to use the data of food from a fitness app called "MINT HEALTH" as it has a diet calculater function, including different types of food with their estimated calories per 100g (100ml). Millions of people use the food calculater to lose weight.

I later calculated the calories for carbohydrate, fat and protein for each deliver food. I estimated the weight for the food based on the research.

After that, I found that I need to have a standard of what could be count as healthy and what could not. After researching, I found that there are differen standards for different people. For example, a child at the age of 5 consume less calories than an 25-year-old adult. I found that I might need to find a group of people to be the representation in order to have a universal standard.

Having only one group of people to represent the whole people is not possible. This should be analyzed by the situation. For selecting a sample group for the topic "people with delivery food," I later choose to select the group of people within 21-35 years old as according to the statistics, they are the largest amount of users of the delivery app （73.04%）. I later use the calculater of calories consuming with the information of the sample index.

The final result of calculation is to have 1158.85-1580.25 Kcal calories from Carbohydration, 316.05-632.1 Kcal from fat, 210.7-316.05Kcal from protein. I divided them in three so they could be seen as for each meal.

The final result of calculation is to have 386.3-526.75 Kcal calories from Carbohydration, 105.35-210.7 Kcal from fat, 70-105Kcal from protein. I divided them in three so they could be seen as for each meal.

3. Final Design

I finally designed the patterns and some ilustrations for the data, I also made a sample "example" on the top to help people better understand the data.

There are some versions that were considered during the process of making the final design.

I initially would like to use the geometrica patterns wo represent different types of nutritional compounds. However, I later found that it was unessary becase in that case, both the color and the pattern will be different.
Having geometrical patterns might make the visual less homogeneous.
A good data visualization requires a systematical research and calculation. It requires people with the ability of organizing useful information, making information being shown in the best way of visualization. Making the information being harmony in a whole visual effection.