VANESSA SANCHEZ
UX & COMMUNICATIONS DESIGNER @ UT AUSTIN
Data Storytelling in Climate Science
INFOGRAPHICS
REPORT DESIGN
CONTENT STRATEGY
OBJECTIVE
Translate technical climate assessment into a community-friendly report
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Climate scientists and community members, including policymakers, speak different languages when it comes to climate information, making it less likely that local climate projections provided by researchers will have an impact on climate mitigation activities and policies in the city.
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As part of my graduate experience (and a career break from the UX industry), I was in search of opportunities to explore the cross-section of human-centered design, information science, and eco-research at UT Austin.
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The initial 31-page document (3 pages shown) was drafted by the UT-City Climate CoLab researchers.
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Upon connecting with the lab, I was asked to review and propose edits to enhance the understandability and accessibility of the report for the community.
WORK CONTEXT
1st UX designer on team of climate researchers
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Team: 1 designer (me), 1 climate scientist, 1 research director, 1 lab coordinator
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What I Did: Team consultations, extensive editing, design of infographics, charts, tables, typesetting, art asset procurement, report layout and production. Conceptual development of climate data portal design (presentation).
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Timeline: Jan 2023 - May 2024 (8 month pause during stakeholder reviews)
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Tools: InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Figma, Google Sheets, Google Docs
SOLUTION
Accessible report with custom graphics and input from many stakeholders
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I created a 32-page document that serves as a primer to climate science for the community and introduces researchers to human-centered methods for communicating technical information.
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Produced using InDesign
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​Hand-sketched infographic concepts built in Illustrator; edited 1 AI-generated graphic (MidJourney) in Photoshop
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Close alignment to UT Austin brand guidelines, resulting in a controlled color scheme and hierarchical typesetting
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Content editing for typos, grammar, syntax, spelling, punctuation, controlled vocabulary, citations, and general understandability.
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20+ rounds of edits with input from 10+ stakeholders across academia/science, local government, and community.
INSIGHTS
Bridging stakeholder mental models: Understanding and aligning perspectives for clearer comm
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Common ground: Through team discussions, we found common ground between the design-thinking process and the scientific process.
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User-centric terminology and visual clarity: Non-expert reviews highlighted the need to use terminology and concepts that the community can understand. Design reviews identified the importance of clear, consistent labeling, color coding, and applying visual hierarchy and gestalt psychology to make charts and infographics easier to understand.
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Data transparency and accessibility: Stakeholder discussions emphasized the need for users to understand how summarized charts (e.g., box-and-whisker plots) are derived and to access the underlying data. I led efforts to create clear definitions and reference images to help the audience interpret charts and tables.
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Connecting data to human experiences: Stakeholder feedback highlighted a desire for insight into recent extreme weather events. In response, I recommended demonstrating the personal impact of the data by connecting it to human stories, including images of Austin’s experience, to make the data more relatable.
OUTCOME
Report is released to the media and will inform local climate mitigation policies
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User-centered accessible design has become a core value in the UT-City Climate CoLab
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I proposed a UX design plan for a web portal version of the report to increase accessibility, reduce production time, maintain the data pipeline, and leverage the lab's data notebook which was coded to generate projections for any location in the world (credit Manmeet Singh).
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"You've gone above and beyond...excellent work." —Lab Director
WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY
Enhanced process and collaboration
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By reserving a dedicated meeting time for project kickoff, I could more effectively engage with the core team to discuss scope, process, stakeholders, timeline, risks, and deliverables, which would help us to more accurately estimate time to complete and needed resources.
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By maintaining a shared project management space, the team could enhance our collaborative efforts and maintain greater transparency.
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By identifying all stakeholders and required reviewers upfront, I could have better anticipated the amount of work needed before the content was final and coordinated edits with greater efficiency.
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By consistently keeping all content edits in a shared Google Doc, and using similar style treatments as the final InDesign document, I could reduce the amount of revisions to the InDesign document and increased efficiency.
