The Face of Adams House
Alice Chung and Jordan Comins
Project Overview
Our overarching question is: what is the face of Adams House? We approached this question from two perspectives—from the individuals level as well as the house as a whole. To do this we asked who are the members of Adams House and what is the energy consumption of Adams House? We wanted to learn more about Adams house residents over the years in terms of who lives where, with whom, and who is friends with who along with what the collective energy consumption of the house is in terms of electricity, gas, steam, and water. We are interested in Adams House in particular as Jordan is an Adams House resident himself and Alice is an avid fan of the house. We choose these questions to help preserve Adams history as well as provide a record of energy consumption and do this preservation in a visual way.
The Data
Adams House Residents Friend Wheel Component
- Data on current residents of Adams House: this data came from the AdamsÕs House Intranet on line at http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/adams/. This data was acquired by writing a scraper in python and is stored in a csv file. Data on previous residents of Adams House: this data comes from Adams House Administrators in hard copy. It was not available to us in electronic form or online so it had to be inputted manually. The csv file contains:
- A link to their Adams House user photo ID so that this photo is displayed in our visualization
- The residentÕs name
- Their room number
- We then created a link to their Facebook page so the user can friend the individual on Facebook if they are not already friends by clicking on their ÒcircleÓ
- Who their friends in the house are—as we cannot survey everyone about who their friends are, this section was generated using the rand() function in excel. (we talked with Professor about this and this is fine)
Energy Component
This data comes from Harvard UniversityÕs Operating Services Utilities Usage Report that can be found online. We acquired this from the website http://www.uos.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/wspd_cgi.sh/docs/utilusg.w. The data could be downloaded as an excel file and as such could be easily saved as a .csv file. The data we are using in the years 2009, 2008, 2007, and 2006 is:
- Annual electric usage in kWh
- Annual gas usage in therms
- Annual steam usage in MMBtu
- Annual
water usage in Ccf
Visualization
Each Adams House resident is represented by a circle. The residents are organized by entryway and the residents form a huge circle or a friendship wheel. The three different entryways are represented by different shades so that it can be easily distinguished where members of one entryway start and end. We choose to use a circle to create a whole as well as show spatial distance between members; those in an entryway are closer to each other in the circle than those living in different entryways. When the user hovers over a little circle, the residentÕs circle is highlighted in orange outline and his picture and room number appear in the top right corner of the visualization. Photos of his friends and their room numbers appear in a line on the bottom of the visualization. From the highlighted residentÕs circle, spokes will extend to the circles of his friends so that the user can visually see where these friends are located. For example, the spokes may extend to only members of the same entryway or to other entryways as well. This shows visually who and where a residentÕs friends are located. The legend, or the entryways, is displayed above the wheel. Each yearÕs residents are represented this way. We chose to make the design so that the user scrolls to another year and the same circle appears with another yearÕs residents.
The energy data is shown as a scatter graph with each dot
representing an energy type and the units represented on the y-axis. The bars
use the same scale and the unit type is written under energy label of each bar
for a reader friendly experience. The dots change values as the user selects a
different year to view. Using a scatter graph allows the user to view how a
point moves as he changes the year or allows comparison as a good visualization
should. The visualization is on white to maximize the ink to data ratio and we
have limited features to the essential to prevent an information overload.
Screenshots
*Hover over a circle to find out who the resident is and
their friends
*Search for a particular resident using the search tool
*Scroll to a different year to see older residents and
that yearÕs energy consumption
Downloads
Click here to down the code and data used to create this
project as well as view a live version of the visualization.