103rd Corridor final comparison poster. Maps and data cleaning: Jessica King. Team poster: Diana Haché, Jessica King, and Madeleine Ortega.
Problem Framing
Community partners need to visualize real data to understand food access in the 103rd Corridor and food waste/recycling potential for grocery stores in Illinois.
The 103rd Corridor project asked us to identify existing community assets and opportunities for development as Chicago’s Red Line Extension moved forward. Our group focused on access to groceries and SNAP usage in surrounding community areas. The final poster compares selected three-mile study areas around Lawrence and the proposed 103rd station, including store counts, SNAP acceptance, and distances from those reference points.
A second opportunity expanded the work to Feed & Conserve, an Illinois coalition advocating for legislative changes around grocery store food donation and recycling. Both projects needed data visuals that could make a complex food system understandable to people working toward community change.
Project | Community question | Deliverable |
|---|---|---|
103rd Corridor | How does grocery access, including SNAP acceptance and store distance, compare across selected North and South Side areas? | Community comparison poster |
Feed & Conserve | How can grocery-store donation, recycling, and waste data support Illinois food-recovery advocacy? | Team Tableau dashboard and presentation |
My Contribution
A fair comparison started with cleaning the data.
My main contribution to the 103rd Corridor work was cleaning the data to make sure the North and South Chicago comparison made sense and was accurate. I created the poster’s maps in Tableau, translating the cleaned comparison into a visual that connected store locations, community areas, and SNAP acceptance.
Learning to join datasets and shape files, separate latitude and longitude into usable fields, and calculate points, lines, and distances took time. Once I understood how the pieces connected, Tableau became more approachable, and I could start making the maps I had pictured.
I also contributed to making the visuals in Tableau. For Feed & Conserve, I helped shape the broader story around why donating and responsibly recycling grocery store food waste matters for communities and the environment. The goal was to connect the visuals to the coalition’s push for legislative change.
Adapting the Scope
A midquarter pivot connected local access with statewide food recovery.
We shifted topics midway through the quarter while continuing to support the original community project. The second dataset focused on grocery-store food donation, recycling, and waste, giving us a new opportunity to translate data into an advocacy tool.
The change brought a new subject, a tighter timeline, and the challenge of coordinating a team in Tableau without the shared editing workflow we were used to. Working together helped us learn the software while producing understandable visuals for two community-partner projects.
Visualizing the Story
The dashboard connected geography, store size, and food-waste pathways.
The team’s Tableau dashboard brought together a county map of average annual food donations, a bubble chart comparing donation contributions by store size, a Sankey diagram of food-waste and donation flows, and an Illinois–United States donation-rate comparison. Together, these views gave the coalition several ways to explore the same issue.
The presentation describes county data for 46 of Illinois’s 102 counties. That coverage matters: the map shows the counties represented in the dataset, and unrepresented counties cannot be treated as having zero donations. Store size patterns contributed to the way the data was presented so we also needed their measurement definitions kept in view.
Interactive Prototype
Explore the Work
Use the dashboard to move between the questions behind the visuals.
Load the interactive Tableau dashboard below, or open it in a separate tab for more room. Its worksheet tabs show the county map, store-size comparison, food-waste distribution, and donation-rate comparison individually. The presentation explains the team’s framing, recommendations, and questions for the coalition.
The dashboard is an original team deliverable. Open individual worksheet tabs for a larger chart view.
Reflection
Two community projects strengthened my practice of ethical data storytelling.
The 103rd Corridor class posters were displayed at a community 5K run to give residents context for development opportunities in the area. Working with community partners including the Rosemoor Community Association gave our food-access comparison an audience beyond the classroom. Other teams explored topics such as vacant lots, housing, and restaurant opportunities.
The second deliverable was a team Tableau dashboard and presentation supporting Feed & Conserve’s legislative advocacy around food donation and recycling. The poster helped me learn Tableau quickly, and Feed & Conserve pushed me further into data cleaning and calculations.
The biggest lesson for me was that data points often refer to individual people. I have a responsibility to keep their context in view, avoid reinforcing harmful stereotypes, and be honest about what a visual can tell us. I want to bring that same care into presenting UX research and helping clients understand opportunities for change.