This project was done as a 14-week collaboration with SocialWorks, a Chicago nonprofit working toward youth empowerment. Through its program “My State of Mind,” SocialWorks challenged us to use visualizations for impactful storytelling as a way to bring attention and communicate important concepts around mental health, especially when engaging with the younger adult audience where textual explanation can be a barrier. The initial task of creating visualizations from its data sets evolved into an extensive study of the mental health space, identifying principles of community engagement among youths and social determinants that create accessibility and equity barriers in the communities. The team created two types of static and interactive data visualizations—one algorithmically drawn from a dataset using Tableau and the other inquiry-driven prototypes using information derived from primary research synthesis.

The Space Between : Our approach, to intervene at the community level by sharing information, will empower communities, encourage awareness and self-sufficiency, and promote the overall health and wellbeing of such communities. It can also reduce the burden on struggling healthcare systems in the United States.

Designers : Ujjwal Anand, Aamena Ansari, Gauri Bhatt, Urvi Bidasaria, Sami Cohanim, Elizabeth Engele, Ruohua Huang, Parker Joyner, Sue Kim, Sun Park, Sara Park, Arijit Patra, Kavya Rai, Kelvin Yu, Minyi Zhang

Course : Communication Design Workshop

Instructor : Tomoko Ichikawa

Project Partner : SocialWorks