Once I had completed my data models last week for each lockout, I ran them through geocommons to get a better idea of what they’d look like when the site was up and running. I ran into one issue: My data appeared in a far too uniform fashion. That is to say, regardless of salary, country of origin, etc. my plotted points appeared as little more than blue pins. This made identifying trends very difficult.
After reading through the geocommons user guide to get a better understanding of how to customize the various aspects of my data, I decided that the easiest way to differentiate my data and thus improve its ability to be analyzed was to revisit the drawing board with how I constructed my maps.
After some frustration attempting to work within the geocommons parameters with which I have become quite comfortable, I decided to get creative. Essentially, I broke my data sets down once more into separate files as dictated by the player’s country of origin. This allowed me to layer my map and individually style players based on where they came from. This also allows me to control which layers of my map I would like my audience to focus on. That being, rather than simply provide an image with statistics written below explaining what percentage of those plotted points are from which country, it is now fully distinguishable to the naked eye. Although this was a time consuming process, I feel it is going to be a tremendous improvement to the clarity of my project.
I have also decided that as a little piece for interaction with my audience, once my maps and data have been publicized through geocommons, a link to that more interactive map will be provided. Although it is disappointing that one can only access this material by having a geocommons account (Finger’s crossed my audience members sign up), the hope is that by making the data public, individuals who would like to see the impact another factor I had not discussed had on player travel patterns. They would simply be able to add it to the data I have publicized and regenerate the map I had initially published.
Steve Boyles Digital Humanities Blog 