The Final Product
After several weeks' worth of work, my final project, "All the Work, None of the Stability: The Gig Worker Experience," is live. The final product can be located here on Shorthand.
The Refining Process
In retrospect, I worry that my initial reviewers may have been too kind regarding my initial draft.
The most important takeaway from those initial conversations was a focus on my audience and the type of information they would find compelling. I narrowed it down from a "general audience" to other workers, likely those who are politically engaged. I attempted to shape the narrative to paint a picture of a group that was working hard to provide for themselves and their families, only to be wronged by an employer who takes advantage of the fact that we need to work to survive. I hoped this would paint an empathetic picture of gig workers, whose struggles in the workforce mirror many of our own. Who hasn't been trapped in an unhappy work environment that doesn't respect us?
As I continued to run through my story, I realized there were several key changes I needed to make: (1) developing a more consisteny color scheme and (2) only using visuals when they were necessary. It was heartbreaking to realize I had too much data cluttering up the narrative for the sake of providing additional visuals -- I had worked hard on them! But ultimately, visuals such as my pie chart or the "dollar" representing the cost of being a gig worker only detracted from the narrative I was hoping to develop. Sometimes, a little bit of text conveys the thought more clearly.
I spent the majority of my time between the second and third phase of this project cleaning up my visuals: I removed unnecessary labels within the charts, I updated the colors to be more consistent, and I streamlined the Shorthand itself so that everything was formatted and aligned in a way that made it easier to read. I am particularly proud of the unit charts -- I think they turned out well, and when paired with the image of the kindly old man, that aspect of the site feels pretty impactful.
The most useful feedback actually came during my presentation -- my classmates are so expressive, it felt apparent when one of the visuals wasn't working or didn't have the "punch" I was going for. One such example was the visualization of how much money is taken from Uber drivers for each ride they give -- I realized that representing gross income in green made it look like a good thing! Reserving the visual so that the fees were in red, compared to the gross income's gray, I could double down on my point that exorbitant fees detract significantly from worker pay. I realized I had spent so much time with some of these graphics that, while they felt intuitive to me, may have needed more time to process than I had hoped.
All in all, this was an incredibly fun project to work on. I appreciate how much I learned about color, trusting my intuition (and when I need to push back on my own approach!), and conveying information cleanly. Maybe I'll keep refining it when I have the time! Thank you for joining me on this data viz journey.
Regarding sources for the project, the data and information I used came from the following places:
Betterment. 2018. “Gig Economy and the Future of Retirement.” New York, NY: Betterment. https://www.betterment.com/uploads/2018/05/The-Gig-Economy-Freelancing-and-Retirement-Betterment-Survey-2018_edited.pdf.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey.” https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000.
Prudential. 2019. “Gig Economy Impact by Generation.” Newark, NJ: Prudential. https://www.prudential.com/wps/wcm/connect/1b4fcef8-afc0-4c87-bc12-2ace844aecb3/Gig_Economy_Impact_by_Generation.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=mMoGiuO.
Helling, Brett. “Uber Fees: How Much Does Uber Pay, Actually? (With Case Studies).” Ridester. Last updated January 7, 2021. https://www.ridester.com/uber-fees/.
Henderson, Rebecca. “How COVID-19 Has Transformed The Gig Economy.” New York, NY: Forbes. December 10, 2020. https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccahenderson/2020/12/10/how-covid-19-has-transformed-the-gig-economy/?sh=5f678e546c99.
Iqbal, Mansoor. “Uber Revenue and Usage Statistics.” Business of Apps. March 8, 2021. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/uber-statistics/.
McFeely, Shane and Ryan Pendell. “What Workplace Leaders Can Learn From the Real Gig Economy.” Gallup. August 16, 2018. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/240929/workplace-leaders-learn-real-gig-economy.aspx.
McGregor, Jenna. “How much people really make in the ‘gig economy’.” Washington, DC: The Washington Post. September 24, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/09/24/how-much-people-really-make-gig-economy/.
Morning Consult. 2018. “National Tracking Poll #180825.” Washington, DC: Morning Consult. https://morningconsult.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/180825_crosstabs_BRANDS_v1_DK-3.pdf.
Rosenblat, Alex. “Gig Workers Are Here to Stay. It’s Time to Give Them Benefits.” Harvard Business Review. July 3, 2020. https://hbr.org/2020/07/gig-workers-are-here-to-stay-its-time-to-give-them-benefits.
Szmigiera, M. Share of gig economy workers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic as of March 2020, by impact. Statista. Published March 12, 2021. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1128298/gig-workers-worldwide-effect-covid-19/.
“Who participates in the Gig Economy?” Gig Economy Data Hub. n.d. Accessed on March 17, 2021. https://www.gigeconomydata.org/basics/who-participates-gig-economy.
All photos are non-copyrighted and found on Pexels.