Early on in the fall semester, we completed an in-class exercise to learn about our peers and develop a data visualization about someone sitting close to us. I spun around in my seat to meet Damalie, a lovely and very tall gentleman sitting beside me. We talked about ourselves and I learned that he is very passionate about his food intake, specifically protein, and his workouts.

I tried to build a visualization from that information that would try to break down his daily caloric intake into macronutrients and try to make some connection to how much money he was spending for those calories.

I don’t know that I was as successful with making the connection with his weekly spend on groceries, but I liked how colourful the chart was and how it clearly showed the prioritization of protein.

Next, I switched to developing a data visualization about my youngest daughter. She attends school in Toronto and must commute via the GO Train each day she has class. One of her favourite rituals each morning is her first coffee of the day. She curls up in the same arm chair in the morning and slowly savours her hot drink. However, I noticed that the length of time she has for that ritual is highly dependent on her class schedule.

I timed her ritual each morning for a week and saw that not only was the time quite different each day, the ingredients she put in her coffee changed as well. On the days she felt really rushed (Tuesday because she slept in and Friday because of the early start), she didn’t even bother with creamer in her coffee. She needed to consume her caffeine as quickly as possible and more liquid only made that take longer. On the other hand, the days where she spent 10 or more minutes on her coffee ritual, she would take her time adding creamer and possibly syrups, adding to the overall experience of consuming her coffee.

Both of these peer visualizations tell a story of small, apparently mundane experiences having fun mechanisms for viewing them. It would never have previously occurred to me to draw such things out, but it was a nice slow down and mental exercise.