Author: kunyi

Kunyi’s Data Log: 2/21/2018

  • Morning before classes:
    • Electricity usage data from turning on lights
    • Water usage data from shower
    • Location data from checking weather
    • Fitness data from step counter on phone during walk to campus
    • Apple Music usage data from listening music
  • In class:
    • Took notes using OneNote
    • Took pictures of notes on blackboard
    • Google form data from in-class quiz and activities
  • Lunch:
    • Credit card transaction data
    • Panda Express sales data
  • After class:
    • Phone call minutes data
    • Credit card transaction data at Muji
    • Muji sales data
    • KungFu Tea app usage data (transaction, rewards system)
    • KungFu Tea sales data
    • SnapChat usage data
    • Fitness data on phone from walking to and from KungFu Tea
    • Attendance data from signing in at 6.009 staff meeting
  • Dinner:
    • Electricity usage data from cooking on stove
    • Tap water data
    • Night:
    • Video data from recording videos at dance practice
    • Lab notebook data from prepping for tomorrow’s experiment
  • Throughout the day:
    • Internet usage data (WiFi, phone data)
    • Various social media app usage data (Twitter, Instagram, Messenger)
    • Phone games usage data
    • YouTube video watching data

How Much Air is in Your Bag of Crisps?

Chip manufacturers claim that air is added into chip packets to protect the chips during transit and lengthen shelf life. However, this visualization created by a UK appliance company called ADC provides a different perspective on chip packaging. Targeted at chip lovers, it looks into the amount of air in chip packets produced by major brands and investigates whether or not the manufacturers’ claims are true. It concludes that chip packet with more air has longer shelf life but not better protection during transit, and suggests a range for ideal air percentage in a chip packet.

Overall, I think this is an effective visualization because it tells a complete story, from introducing the topic, providing evidence, and coming to a conclusion. On more specific aspects, the representation of the percentage of air in each brand of chips by a picture of the insides of the chip packet makes the data easy to understand. In addition, the graphics below the description of the drop test explains how the experiment was done in a concise manner. Aside from that, emphasizing parts of text by a bold font helps readers grasp the main ideas.

However, some aspects were not effective. In the testing part, there is no explanation for why the drop test was chosen for testing protection during transit and how it was determined that the reason for longer shelf life was more air rather than other factors, which makes the data less credible. Furthermore, the bar graph displaying the percentage of air in various chip packets produced by each brand contributes nothing new to the finding that air percentage varies a lot between different kinds of chips. This graph repeats evidence provided by the previous piece of information.

Visualization: https://www.cda.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/crisps-main-infographic.png