Show hydrologic events length & type

[lindsayplatt]

Sandra ask Is there a way to make it more clear how long a particular hydrologic event lasted? (e.g. a date range in the call out?) ... on 11/19.

I think this would be harder for droughts, but we could try to do something on the date wheel.

[lindsayplatt]

This task should prototype some examples via rudimentary means (take one frame and use paint/photoshop/powerpoint) and share via Slack before implementing a code-based solution.

[lindsayplatt]

Option 1 - text indicating event length

Easiest solution is to just include the text, but I think we can do better. Just don't want to get too busy.

Option 2 - mini static date wheel indicating event length

Could get kind of busy, but I like that the indication of event length is coupled with the event details and visual.

Option 3 - indicate on date wheel

This might get tricky when multiple events are happening at the same time. Also, during an event, your eye is likely drawn to the event description and region, so you might not notice this feature.

[aappling-usgs]

They all get the job done, but I like Option 3 the best. The colors on the wheel could be permanent (maybe light red before and dark red after the date has passed, like in Google Calendar event coloring?) - that would make it easier for users to notice the feature. Would also make it easier to slide the movie through time until the date lands on a callout you wanted to visit/revisit.

[aappling-usgs]

And we could make each event less thick than the width of the donut so that multiple simultaneous events could coexist on the wheel.

[lindsayplatt]

wheel_color and wheel_color_passed in viz_config for the callouts

[lindsayplatt]

Here's a quick implementation of this. Do we hate it or like it? Style changes (general colors + color changing if it's before/after the event) and dealing with overlapping events is planned, but only if we move forward.

[aappling-usgs]

How do the colors change before/after? I'd prefer just one or two colors, maybe even sticking with reds and blues for droughts and floods. Does it work to place those event bars within the already-shaded rim of the color wheel?

PS - For the wet-dry legend, I think "drier" and "driest" (instead of with a y) would be a bit more conventional.

[lindsayplatt]

As you suggested in a couple comments above, they would be light/darker shade depending on whether the event has happened or not (like Google Cal events).

Yes, I was thinking maybe just reds or blues - then they could be added to the legend. The challenge is when there are two blue or two red events overlapping. I think we would need a border. Yes, I could try adding them to the inside. I guess I thought they would be easier to see on the outside, but that was a hypothesis. I'll try it and see.

(thanks for pointing that out!)

[lindsayplatt]

New iteration (still not taking care of overlapping events, but I have an idea). I've been playing with trying to make the original blue brighter, but all the variations that deviate too much from the color for "wettest" look strange.

[aappling-usgs]

I like it!

[lindsayplatt]

Overlapping events. I put a note in the code that this only works for two overlapping and would need to be changed if there were more overlapping at any one time. Seems like too much an edge case to handle now.