ATUS ITCS-4122-001 April 6, 2015

Project Report on American Time Use Survey

Members: Christy Case, Stephanie Caston, Vyacheslav Yakushenko, Kadrick Henderson

For our visualization project, our group decided to use the dataset called

American Time Use Survey Data. This data showed how each participant would

spend his or her average day. However, due to the massive amount of data provided,

we had to scale back the amount of attributes that we used. After this was done we

were able to use the Parallel Coordinates graph from the D3 examples library to

display our data. Below is a snapshot demonstration of what we have created.

In the screenshot above each activity that a participant does per day is displayed at

the top. The lines that connect to each other throughout each column represent just

one participant. Darker areas represent a level at which more participants

participated in that specific activity. For example, t050101 is darkest between 300

and 600; this is where the most activity is for that particular activity.

ATUS ITCS-4122-001 April 6, 2015

In the two screenshots above, another one of our features is displayed. This feature

allows for users to select an activity and move it to another position in parallel

coordinates graph. This allows users to visualize the data in different ways and gives

them more interactivity with the graph itself.

ATUS ITCS-4122-001 April 6, 2015

Another feature we created is displayed in the screenshot above. What this feature

allows the user to do is select a range for a specific activity. In the screenshot above

the data for the participants who had a range of 500 to a little over 600 for activity

t050101 is selected. After the user selects the range, all the data of the participants

who fit into that range is displayed for all other activities. This allows users to have

more freedom and allows them the ability to further test the data.

ATUS ITCS-4122-001 April 6, 2015

Our data included demographics of all the participants as well, and we were able to

find a solution for that by implementing a demographics section before the activities

section of our graph. The participants’ age, race, education level, sex, number of

children, etc… are all displayed in the graph. This allows users to get an idea of the

background of the participants of the survey.

ATUS ITCS-4122-001 April 6, 2015

Lastly we knew we had to make understanding the graph as easy as possible so we

implemented a dropdown legend. This dropdown legend is easy to use, all the user

has to do is click on it and scroll through. Each activity code is listed and has what

that code represents right next to it. The dropdown legend makes it possible to

avoid clutter and makes the overall layout more appealing for the users. Ultimately

we feel as though we have created a solid project.