gapminder_challenge - Group 12

To complete by the group reviewing:

Provide 3 pieces of constructive feedback that could help the app to be better suited to the scenario it was designed for:

As the app is aiming to augment the worldview upgrader, it may be helpful to provide a link to the upgrader as well as information so that users can read up on particular topics before answering the questions.
I think a 'DIY' plot where users can play around with which variables they wish to plot on the X and Y axes could be very cool to have. As the dashboard is, users will only be able to obtain information about these 4 categories when there are many many more variables in the gapminder data set. It would be nice to have the ability to play around with an empty plot and discover new things by myself.
As the app is aimed at showing users their misconceptions, one idea is that when a user gets the answer wrong, the plot shows where their incorrect data point would be in relation to the line plot which allows them to compare their answer to the real figure.

Provide 3 pieces of constructive feedback that could help the app to be better suited to the user(persona) it was designed for:

An explanation in each tile regarding what the information is showing and what some of it means would be helpful as this is an educational tool. As this dashboard is targeted toward people with little to no understanding of the UN Goals, they likely will not know what the term 'Income per Capita' means, so a small blurb would go far in helping them understand that.
If I were Lisa, I feel like if I answered a question incorrectly I'd like to be able to obtain feedback and understand why the data is the way it is, so providing that information could be helpful, or at least resources to find that information. For example, 'Why is the average number of children per woman decreasing over time?' and is that a good thing?
I think the ordering of the tiles could help users learn about flow-on effects. The way the tiles are currently make them seem very unrelated. For example, the income per capita plot and CO2 emission plot should be side by side because it makes sense that a continent that has increased its income per capita by as much as Europe would have done so at the cost of outputting more CO2 emissions. Thus, it might be worth thinking about the ordering of the tiles as some of them are more related than they might seem.

Frontend / layout

Is the text (plot labels / titles / subtitles) easy to read?

The text is very easy to read, I appreciate that the title of the plots changes with the slider so it is specific and directly titles what it is showing.
For the first plot, the question asks 'The countries in which continents has been the main CO2 emitter' but the answer only provides continents as options, perhaps reword the question to 'Which continent is the largest emitter of CO2'?

Are the plots selected appropriate for the data? Can you think of other alternatives or improvements for the plots regarding interactivity/reactivity or plot selection?

I think the plots are appropriate for each type of data, with a bar chart chosen to depict a specific year and a line plot for a range of years.
I like that I'm able to zoom in and out of each line plot to further inspect each element.
I think perhaps the line plots could be slightly thicker, it's a little hard to get exactly the right point to hover on for the hover tool to work.

Was the dashboard organized in a way that was easy to read (columns / rows) or you would suggest a change in this sense?

The dashboard was organised well. The landing page is simple and not overly cluttered.
The use of white text on a bright yellow banner makes it a bit hard to read the excerpt but is certainly eye catching.
The tiles are well padded, aligned, and consistently sized which is ideal.

Would you prefer including tabs / navbars to improve the navigation or you think it is better to visualize everything in one screen by the nature of the content?

I think given the amount of information in the app it is better to visualise everything in one screen. I feel that the space has been used appropriately and if each tile were given its own page and users had to navigate one by one to get to them, it would leave a lot of empty space in each page.

Are the plots or other images described properly for the persona described?

For the most part yes, the titles and legends of the plots are very easy to understand.
As stated above, a small summary or explanation of what certain measure are would be helpful, e.g. CO2 per Capita.

Backend

Are the options that you can select in the widgets working fine or have you found some cases where it is not working? If there are interactive plots: are the labels clear and easy to understand?

No, all the widgets and interactivity work really well. Nice work!
The interactive plots are clearly labelled and the tooltips are also neatly labelled.

Documentation

Was the documentation easy to understand from the README.md how to use the app? How could the documentation be improved?

The dashboard description mentions a child mortality vs. income level dashboard which is not present. It looks to have been replaced by the CO2 emissions per capita, I think this should be updated in the README.
Furthermore, the installation section is incomplete.
Other than that, everything else reads well and is easy to understand.

Was the app intuitive to use without reading the documentation? What information could be good to include?

Yes, the app was fairly self explanatory without needing to read the documentation. Although it was easy to use, it might be good to include information regarding what this is for and where users can get information to read up on these issues e.g. link to the worldview upgrader and gapminder.

Indicate something you would like to include in your own app after reviewing this one

I think having a tooltip to explain variables and how they're calculated would be good to include in our own app.

UBC-MDS / DSCI532-peer-review