Haiti Earthquake Infographic

Project Overview

The majority of earthquake data is presented in charts or spreadsheets, making it difficult for users to visualize the information in a sensible manner. Haiti By The Numbers is an interactive infographic that presents the incidents' statistics contextually by showing its place among other historical earthquakes.

Earthquakes statistics involve many different categories, and Haiti By The Numbers focuses on some of the more popular ones: casualties, magnitude, injuries, and economic loss. Instead of viewing the numbers in a traditional chart, the infographic visualizes the data presenting it in creative metaphors.

Using a circular ring, the user is given the flexibility to set specific value ranges for any of the four categories. The results are calculated instantaneously and displayed in creative dotted bar chart visualizations, displaying Haiti’s own numbers against those of the top 5 in the selected category. Additionally, the number of global occurrences that fall within the range are also shown on a mini-map.

Process

Although the initial objective of the project was to create an infographic that sorted earthquake data globally, I decided to make the project more "Haiti-centric" in order to keep the data set manageable and the visuals more simplistic and easier to comprehend. After sketching out the initial designs, rough black and white comps were created to test the viability of the various UI concepts.