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Below are the links to my final data story shorthand. Note, there have been some bugs with my graphics not fully loading in the final published URL, so I am including the editor as well, which always includes the loaded graphics.
I was able to incorporate quite a few changes that my interviewees recommended to me! For this section, I will run down the list of changes that were suggested and if I incorporated them:
| Interview Changes Suggested | Changes made in Part III |
|---|---|
| The fonts need to be altered. | I tried my best to alter the fonts. Not all of the fonts were editable, for example, I wasn’t able to figure out how to change the font for my research output years. However, I tried to make the changes where I could! From the critique by design assignment, I liked how I used boldened words to emphasize certain aspects of my story. So I wanted to use bold lettering and different colored lettering to draw the user’s attention to the must essential bits of information. I hope that these changes were successful. |
| A legend for the map. | This was a super easy fix. Tableau already generated a label, I removed it because I didn’t think it looked very good, but since no label left my viewers confused, I needed to make this change. I decided to make a dashboard instead of just using the map, that way I could import other maps like Hawaii, Alaska, and Washington D.C. into one graphic. These three states/district all have AZA zoos, so leaving them out of the map frame wouldn’t be telling the whole story. Along with including these extra maps, I also included the legend at the bottom of the map and made the map itself have no set buckets. Without the buckets, an answer between 1 and 2 will have different shades of green, where before there were buckets to group certain zoos together as one shade of green. I think this will help the viewers see more minute details much easier. |
| Captive Animals Lifespans | Thankfully, I was able to find a data source for this! This data source listed on carnivorous species, but that’s alright, as it shows the general trend that zoos are increasing captive animal lifespans over time. Originally, I was thinking this would be a shared line chart, but I prefered splitting up each animal group into its own column as I found it easier to read. |
| Does more funding mean better animal care? | Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find data on this question. However, if I had more time, I would love to look more into this question! |
| Update the language in the Research Impact. | I tried my best to make it more obvious what impact and output meant for this chart. In the axes, I made sure to add that impact was measured in citations was output was measured in published papers. I also changed the colors of the axes (blue = output, orange = impact) so that it is easier to understand which axes are measuring what. In addition, I edited the tooltip so that output and impact are defined whenever someone moves over a data point. Hopefully, this helps clear up this question! |
| Overlap the habitat maps | This was my biggest hurdle. Tableau was not working with me on getting these squares to overlap. After a lot of work, I got something I was more proud of. Basically, I made both of these two separate square charts, I then made them dual axes so that they were on top of one another. I then adjusted both of their sizes equal to the square meters. Once I de-synchronized the axes, these two squares then came together. I put Victorian zoos above Modern zoos by layering the two values, and made the Victorian zoos gray. I decided to change the color of the modern habitat to green since that seems more like the color palette of my other graphs, so I wanted to remain visually consistent. I then removed the axes (since they weren’t synchronized) and labeled the graphics with the values on top of them so that the axes weren’t needed. I also added these values into the tooltip in case someone was still confused about which label belonged to which. I really liked Nickolas’ suggestion of making this 3 times number more relatable to someone, but I wasn’t able to add this to the graphic. |
| Which animals are being prioritized | While I don’t think this would have been a tough choice to add, st the end of the day, I simply ran out of time before my presentation. Had I had more time, I think I could’ve certainly added this, but I wasn’t able to get exact numbers from the data I had. I had a pie chart and the percentages, but I don’t remember ever getting exact numbers, and this wouldn’t do. |
| Adding Animal graphics. | I didn’t add animal graphics to the charts themselves as I feel this would be too distracting, but I made sure to ad plenty of animal pictures within the presentation. I mean, its a presentation about zoos, there _have to be animals! |
From Part 2, I believed that my audience would be mostly animal conservationists and zoo representatives, but from my interviews and from seeing how my story progressed, my opinion has slightly shifted. I still think these two audiences would be interested in this story, but there are some things that are a little inconsistent. For example, a representative from an AZA zoo would already know about AZA zoo’s as funding for conservation, and an animal conservationist would already know about the many problems that modern zoos have still yet to resolve. I think another audience member would be someone who was on the fence about supporting zoos or not. I decided my call to action would be that “there are plenty of bad zoos out there, our job as responsible consumers is to know which zoos we should support so that our money can help fund the conservation of these amazing animals.” This presentation is about who you should support and how you can support them. I found it difficult to take a side one way or another between the zoos and the conservationists. I agree that there are problems with zoos, and that our system is not perfect, but I also believe and know from personal experience that AZA zoos truly care for their animals. I was a zookeeper once, and every person I worked with wanted to make our animals as happy as they could be. So I don’t agree with the notion that zoos are terrible places that should be destroyed, but I also see the controversy in placing these animals evolved for huge spaces to be placed in confinement within human-built cities. It was a difficult choice for me, and one that I still haven’t resolved within myself. I think that’s why I appealed to the concerned audience more than either of the two sides I identified before in my final data story.
I still wasn’t super clear about what story I wanted to tell when I submitted Part 2. I knew I wanted to talk about zoos because I feel very passionate about this issue, but I also didn’t know what spin I would have on this argument. I do think AZA zoos play a very important role in conservation, but I also wish they did even more. So, for my final design for the story, I decided to lean into which zoos are the best to support, those being AZA zoos. In my final part, I did a lot of research into the world of privatized zoos, those that are not in the AZA. I found it really shocking that we have no idea how many zoos are in the United States, and just how easy it was to buy exotic animals off of Facebook of all places. Upon reading these shocking facts, I knew I had my story. I wanted to talk about the great work that AZA zoos do while contrasting that to the Wild West of private zoos. I know there are some good private zoos out there, but if they aren’t being regulated by the AZA, there is no telling what’s going on behind closed doors. Upon finding my story, I got really excited making my shorthand! I started with a template already made in Shorthand, I believe it was the ‘Coral Reef Conservation’ template. I then built out my story with this. My favorite part of Shorthand was adding the images and creating unique slides, such as my “illegal exotic animal trade” page. It was so exciting seeing my story come to life not only through the writing but also through the imagery. I would often take breaks from writing to scroll through the progress I had already made and feeling really proud of how everything looked. I will absolutely be using Shorthand in the future!
All of my references are included in Shorthand. If you see any text that is shaded green, that means there is a hyperlink that you can use to find that source. I found all images using Google Image’s built-in “Creative Commons licenses” tool, and I included the source website where that image was found in hyperlinks. Similarly, I used YouTube’s “Creative Commons licenses” tool to find uncopyrighted videos, those being the African Springbuck video in the title slide and the video by Jay Brewer in my ‘Good Zoo, Bad Zoo’ section.
All in all, this process was great! It was very exciting seeing everything come together at the end, and now I feel proud showing people my final product (or just scrolling through it myself). If I had more time, I would have loved to dig more into zoo statistics. I kept running into a consistent problem that many zoos have databases that you can find on Species 360, or the Zoological Information Management System (ZIMS). Species 360 was cited in many research articles for being used to get their data. The problem is that you need to apply for membership. They don’t even list a price online as you need to apply to get in first. There is an education license for universities, but that also requires a school application (at least, as far as I can tell). If I had the resources, you better believe I would have gotten access to that dataset. However, I wasn’t able to get in for this project, and so I found my data elsewhere. That being said, it was great getting to learn and talk about zoos again, I am very happy with how my presentation turned out. I hope you enjoyed reading my process and enjoy my presentation as much as I do!