Category: Uncategorized

Jakub

Topic:
This week’s topic was right up my alley. I’m a social animal. I enjoy interacting with other people and analyzing my social relationships in any way imaginable.

Data gathering:
I had this idea from the start — to rank my relationships from the most distant acquaintances to the closest of friends. While drawing the chart on the postcard, I was analyzing my contact list and people I follow on social media. I was also mindful of not falling into the trap of the availability heuristic.

Data drawing:
I like working with calipers. Ring pattern was most fitting here. It was a pleasure to work on this project.

The process:

Chris

Topic:
I wasn’t excited about this week’s project. In Hong Kong we still try to be careful and leave home as rarely as possible. We limit out opportunities to meet other people, so this week’s card contains data relating mostly to interactions with my wife.

Data gathering:
While the topic wasn’t exciting, the data gathering process was!

I created a Siri Shortcut that would send me a notification each hour during the day. Upon tapping on that notification, I would get a prompt to enter the number of people in my field of view. That number would get saved into a specific note.

The process:

Jakub

Topic:
Emotions. This topic was right up my alley. I love psychology and analyzing the behaviors of people around me. But this time, I had to focus on my own emotions. This was a week of a bike trip and I was making 100 km a day. I had very few encounters with other people. So I had a lot of time for self-reflection.

Data gathering:
It was difficult to take notes while on a bike! So every evening before going to sleep I was writing down the percentage share of each emotion category (per Ekman’s categorization) that I experienced during the day. Those included joy, anger, fear, sadness, disgust, and surprise.

Data drawing:
I had an idea how to draw this postcard even before this week’s assignment begun. I was inspired by the paintings of Jackson Polloc and wanted to fill the card with the colors of each emotion. The share of each emotion in the week was represented by the time I took to draw on the postcard.

The process:

Chris

Topic:
This week has undoubtedly taught me to pay more attention to my own emotions. And led me to a sad (sic!) conclusion that recently, most emotions I feel are negative.

Conclusions:
Blue color on the graph represents emotions connected to anxiety, fear, and uncertainty. There’s a reason this color dominates on my postcard from this week. Hong Kong is currently in the midst of the 3rd wave of the pandemic, with daily new case numbers in the triple-digits.

The uncertainty increases with every day. Even more so, as the renewed lockdown makes my new job even more uncertain.

This week, this anxiety has always been there somewhere in the background. And it made it easier for other negative emotions to surface — like anger and sadness.

Fortunately, there were some bright spots as well. Those are the green lines on the graph. Very few, but very important to me at the time.

The process:

Jakub

Topic:
I like to-do lists. I keep personal tasks in Google Tasks. At work, I use Trello, with all its advanced features. Both task lists are heavily automated. Most of my to-dos are recurring tasks, e.g. taking vitamin supplements. But there are big, one-time projects in there as well, such as a trip around the Balkans.

Data gathering:
Data gathering felt effortless this week. I was doing what I’m usually doing. My to-do apps keep all the records.

Data drawing:
This time I was drawing my postcard on a Thursday, instead of on a Sunday as I usually do. I wanted to finish drawing before I went out on a planned vacation. I wanted to show how my personal tasks are separate from my work ones. This must be the most minimal postcard so far. My mind was focused on vacation already 🙂.

The process:

Chris

Topic:
I really enjoyed the topic of task management. Personal productivity is something that I’m interested in. I’ve spent hours upon hours on testing various to-do apps and building my own productivity stack. Keeping a list of tasks and reminders makes my life much easier.

Data gathering:
This was yet another week without a paper notebook. Everything was kept in a digital form — either in logs from my to-do app or screenshots. I keep my personal tasks in Things, so the easiest way to keep track of the data points was to take a screenshot at the end of the day.

Data drawing:
My postcard this week was something mid-way between Stefanie’s design from the same week and a bullet journal approach.

It was quite surprising for me to find that I have such a high number of tasks scheduled for Mondays (ok, this part is not that surprising) and Sundays (but this one is!) — while the middle of the week is less task-heavy.

The process:

Jakub

Topic:
I met Chris because of this project. We’ve never seen each other in person. Our communication is limited to emails, Messenger chats, and a few video calls — in addition to sending postcards to each other. I had an idea how to showcase our comms on the postcard from the very start, though.

Data gathering:
I collected transcripts of our conversation in a single text file. Then, using an online service, I generated a word cloud.

Data drawing:
I wanted the card to show the words that we use most often when we talk. I must admit, this did not turn out the exact way I wanted. It was difficult for me to copy the exact size of the words from the word cloud. On the card, all the words have the same size. Regardless, this was one of the most time-consuming cards to draw so far!

The process:

Chris

Topic:
For Stefanie and Giorgia — the creators of the original Dear Data project — week 9 was special. It was the first time for them to be in the same city at the same time. So naturally, they spent a lot time together. Jakub and I didn’t have the same opportunity. We were grounded during the pandemic, so travel was out of the question.

Data gathering:
Most of our comms go through Facebook Messenger, so data gathering was trivial. I hardly made any notes. Everything was there in the conversation history.

Data drawing:
I like the way the graph turned out. It’s readable and it resembles a view inside a conversation app — with a few additional data points.

I also love Jakub’s approach. This is likely my favorite postcard so far!

The process:

Jakub

Topic:
In a time when smartphones have native solutions for tracking screen time, I found this topic rather dull. I decided to track triggers that make me want to reach for my phone.

Data gathering:
I was using Google Keep for data collection (I’m fond of Google’s solutions). After each pick up, I made a note about what made me use my phone. I organized it into categories such as social media, payments, music, etc. – 20 in total.

Data drawing:
I took the easy way. I sorted the categories in the descending order – from the one that triggered picking up the phone most often to least often. Mid-way through the process I realized I skipped one category, so my initial plan to draw an inverted pyramid got somewhat derailed.

The process:

Chris

Topic:
I don’t usually track my screen time. This week’s assignment made me realize that I pick up my phone way too often. It was clear as soon as Monday, when I noticed I picked up my phone 70 times in one day. Fortunately, pick ups trended downward later in the week, with 57 pickups on Tuesday and 41 on Wednesday.

Data gathering:
After two months of using a paper notebook to collect my data points, I decided to use my phone this time. Primarily because of the Screen Time feature on my iPhone, which made tracking this data very easy.

Data drawing:
I got hit by a creative block this week — something that I’ve feared would happen since the beginning of the project. It me took two attempts to draw this week’s postcard, and still I’m not exactly happy with the final effect.

The process:

Jakub

Topic:
Some say Polish people have complaining in their DNA. So this was a good opportunity to verify that. People consider me an optimist — but am I one really?

Data gathering:
As usual, I was using notes app in my smartphone to collect the data. I was writing down every complaint — regardless of wether I spoke it out loud or just thought of it. After all, we’re not always ready to share our complaints. Especially at work.

Data drawing:
I wanted to compare the spoken out complaints against those I kept only to myself. It occurred to me, that using a drawing of a face to show that could be a good idea. Hence the eyes.

The process:

Chris

Topic:
This one was unusual. Quickly I found out that the data I’m gathering are more of a qualitative than quantitative kind.

When it came to drawing, it reminded me of one of the most dreaded and mundane tasks of every market researcher — coding open ended responses.

Data drawing:
It was the first time I didn’t use a pencil outline for my postcard. Hashtag “courage” 😉. And I got a new set of drawing tools too!

Conclusions:
It’s clear — the closer to the weekend, the fewer the complaints. Mondays, obviously, are the worst!

The process:

Jakub

Topic:
If not for this project, I wouldn’t be collecting data about physical contact with other people. I like topic like this, because you can see how frequently you touch someone — in a time of a pandemic, it’s something good to know. Wonder how this postcard would’ve looked in “normal” times.

Data gathering:
I was using Notes app on my phone to collect data. I was making note of the gender of the person I touched and the social context. My physical contacts stats were definitely dominated by greetings and goodbyes.

Data drawing:
Drawing a postcard has become my Sunday ritual. I like it! My goal this week was to clearly visualize the number of people I came in contact with along with their genders. Contacts with my girlfriend, Agata, definitely stand out.

The process:

Chris

Topic:
I wasn’t feeling too comfortable with this week’s topic. For two reasons.

Firstly, physical contact and touch — this is some intimate stuff. And not something I’d like to share publicly. I was surprised that Giorgia, from the original Dear Data project, went as far as sharing which parts of the body were touched! For me, that’s too much.

Secondly, the pandemic. The elephant in the room. Current circumstances limit the opportunities for any physical contact. And even if I meet someone in person, we usually don’t do handshakes anymore. Shaking hands has fallen out of favor, at least in Hong Kong.

Data gathering:
All in all, the data I collected this week was scarce — by design. I didn’t want to go into too much detail. And didn’t have many data points anyway, due to the circumstances.

Data drawing:
The postcard design this week is very simple. It’s almost like your typical column chart. I didn’t want to share too much 🙂.

The process:

Jakub

Topic:
I’ve been managing my personal budget for years, so this topic was very easy for me to tackle.

Data gathering:
I was collecting receipts. Then, every expense from this week I put into Excel and divided into categories and days of the week. This particular week was my payday week, which is quite visible on the chart. Every month on the payday I treat myself (e.g. with some clothing purchase).

Data drawing:
Every week I’m trying to find some not-so-obvious way of visualizing the data. This week’s inspiration was the solar system.

The process:

Chris

Topic:
This week’s assignment felt very familiar. On my personal blog — Metafinanse (in Polish only) — I write about managing your personal budget and keeping your expenses in check. So the fifth week of our Dear Data project was tapping into an already-existing habit for me.

This is also another topic where you can see the effects of the pandemic. Had we lived in “normal” times, I’d have made more purchases during this week, I’m sure.

Data gathering:
For my personal budget record-keeping, I only collect two data points: the expense category and the amount. But for Dear Data I’ve made a few additions. I was taking note of the number of items on each receipt, payment type, and the person for whom the purchase was intended.

Data drawing:
I’m quite satisfied with how my postcard turned out this week — especially with the “depth” of the data that I managed to capture in the chart.

You can see there are 2 levels of the way I chose to pay (card vs. cash) X 2 levels of the payment method (online vs. in-person) X 2 levels of the person for whom the purchase was intended (me vs. me and my wife) X 6 levels of expense categories. Plus, add the number of items on each receipt and you have loads of information in there. And still, everything remains readable!

The process:

Jakub

The topic:
Am I a narcissist? When I was younger, some people considered me narcissistic. I never agreed with that, though. I do have some insecurities… but none of them about looking in the mirror. I like that moment of self-reflection (pun intended).

Data gathering:
Once again, phone, screenshots, and notes were the way to go for me. Three mirrors took the lead in the data. Large mirror in the living room, small one in the bathroom, and a bathroom mirror at work.

Mirrors as a topic was easy to analyze. Looking in the mirror requires a moment of peace, and that’s something hard to miss. Low risk of measurement error!

Data drawing:
Even before collecting the data, I had already decided on the way of visualizing it. I wanted to include some kind of symmetry or mirror image. I like working with calipers — it’s precise, reliable, and—in this case—it augments my drawing skills.

The process:

Chris

The topic:

Similarly to Giorgia and Stefanie, the authors of the original Dear Data project, I found the topic of mirrors uninspiring. At least at the beginning of this week. But as days went by, I started to notice new things — specifically, the sheer number of reflective surfaces that surround us.

This is what I like about this project — it helps me notice things, that I usually take for granted.

Data gathering:
I must admit, I took the easy way out this time. The only data points I collected were the location of the mirror and the time.

I underestimated this topic. My first approach to drawing the data was to show each mirror reflection as a line bouncing off the edge of the postcard. And you would read mirror’s location from the angle: acute – bathroom, obtuse – living room, right angle – everything else. But soon enough, the data presented this way became unreadable.

So after this first failed attempt, I took another stab at it. Lines still remained the main theme, but I arranged them differently this time.

Additional observations:

I keep noticing how the themes of weeks past stay with me for longer. When I’m checking the time or thanking someone, I catch myself going for my notebook.

To me, it’s a proof that you can form new habits very quickly. All it takes is a large number of repeats and a clear trigger.

The process:

Jakub

The topic:
How often do we say the magic “thank you”? Has it lost its value? In this week of Dear Data Poland we were going to find out.

Data gathering:
As usual, I wanted to streamline the data collection process and took notes and screenshots on my phone. It’s the easiest way of gathering data for me. I was making a note of the circumstances of each “thank you”, whether I was the recipient or the one thanking someone, as well as my relation to the other person.

Data drawing:
I was surprised by the relatively low number of “thank-you’s” I registered. 5 a day, on average. I wanted the postcard to highlight the imbalance between the “thank you’s” between people I’m close with, and the courteous “thank you’s”, for instance at a store.

The process:

Chris

The topic:
Collecting all the “thank-you’s” was definitely the one with a risk of observer bias. Am I acting differently just because I’m recording this data? Am I thankful enough?

Data gathering:
I recorded four data points for each thank-you:

1. Who is saying the thank you
2. Who is being thanked
3. How did they thank — in person, via phone, via email, etc.
4. In what language — for those rare instances where I said thank you in Cantonese

Making a note of each thank you turned out to be surprisingly difficult and distracting. Because sometimes you just say “thank you” in a conversation — and it’s hard to suddenly pause, take out your notebook, and start scribbling. So you need to keep that “thank you” data point in your memory — which is distracting you from the conversation that is still ongoing.

Data drawing:
For this postcard, my “charts” were ordered by people whom I thanked or who thanked me.

The end result is not too bad, though I had a bit of a difficulty with the “how” part of the thank you. Size of some triangles on the postcard went out of control!

The process: