Information visualization | Process of exploring Titanic Data

Process of exploring Titanic data in Tableau  Step1: Understanding the requirement of the assignment

Step2: Understanding what information is there in the data

Step3: Opening Tableau and exploring to see weather the data set can be executed in Tableau Due to the original data interprets variable of survival rate by quantitative data (death=o, survived=1), it makes Tableau accumulate the number automatically. As a result, Tableau cannot represent it in relation to other associated variables.

Step4: In order to solve this issue I decide to clean up aggregated and descriptive data. First of all, either remove the rows that do not contain raw data records or rename them as N/A. Secondly, the excel sheet into qualitative data. For instance, display First class passengers as 1st,Second class as 2nd, and Third class as 3rd instead of 1,2 and 3.

Step5: Altering the quantitative data into qualitative data helps Tableau understand what it means when it says 1, 2 and 3. (1= First class, 2= Second class, and 3= Third class) Now, it is easily to see different variables between group of people who survived and dead.

In some situation, colors deliver certain message when people look at charts. For example, when the variable is sex, the color of blue delivers the message better than pink. Therefore, the choice of color should be more careful.

Step6: Searching for inspiration

Step7: Editing in Illustrator and Photoshop

Step8: Further exploring in Tableau and finding the most suitable chart that fits with my design.

Step9: Editing charts into illustrator and making sure that tag lines, legends, and captions are clearly tiled.

Step10: First draft of my Titanic visualization.

Step11: Viewing it again on the next day. I always feel there is something missing when I view my work after I submit my final draft, so now I always force myself to check it on the next day to make sure I’m really satisfied with the work that I have done.

The biggest reason changing this design is that I feel the first draft has a lack of element helps viewers to understand the narrative. It concentrates on the illustration of the iceberg rather then charts.

Therefore, I tried inserting percentages of survived rates and playing with different colors.

Step12: Final draft. I put in the chart (pink and blue chart at the bottom) that I make for the first draft in this version. I also tried many different types of font for the title. Normally, I would use Bauhaus 98 since I have applied it on the percentage that suggests survival rates.

However, it looks too fancy and Fairy talely. After a while I finally find Abadi MT Condensed Extra Bold. I choose Abadi MT Condensed Extra Bold because I think it has similer personality with Bauhaus 98 which I apply on character of the number, and it also fit with Andale Mono that I apply on detail descriptions.

Step12: Final draft.

Discussion

The numbers make it all too clear that a rule of First Class First far outweighed the principle of Women and Children First. In simple terms, almost all of the women and children in First and Second Class survived, while most of the women and children in steerage died.

In contrast, 89% of the men in First, Second, and Third Class died.

For some perspective, here is the price of tickets: First Class tickets ranged from £30 for a berth to £870 for a luxury suite with a private fiftyfoot promenade and the only private lavatory and toilet facilities in all the ship. A Second Class ticket could be purchased for as little as £12. Steerage tickets ranged from £3 (for children) to £8, but family tickets were also available to make tickets even more affordable to large families. I have seen various estimates of how much that would be worth in current US dollars, so I think it makes more sense to make a different comparison. The cheapest ticket would have cost a clerk, typist, or shipyard worker a month's salary, and in many cases families would have had to use all their savings to afford the passage. The most expensive First Class ticket was similar in price to that of a very expensive luxury automobile.

Since adult male passengers were more likely to die than women and children, the sex of the passengers should probably by factored in when comparing the survival rate by class, but the percentages are not significantly different. More than 62% of the steerage passengers were adult males, compared to and 64% in Second Class, and 57% of the First Class passengers.