Since Discussions, Assignments, and Quizzes can't be accessed in a public Canvas shell, you'll find my discussion prompt with accessibility weaved in below.

Discussion Overview

For this discussion board, you will need to find a display of data out in the world and consider how well the creator communicated their story.

Purpose

The goal here is to interrogate how displays are used as a part of the storytelling process, while checking for communication and accessibility considerations.

Prompt

In this discussion, you will find a display of data and share the following in a reply to this discussion:

Post the display you found along with an accessible link to the article, infographic, tweet, blog post... it was contained in.
Explain how this display was used in the article, infographic, tweet, blog post... What was the author's purpose in including this graph?
Assess the communication considerations for the display. Did the creator include a meaningful title, axes labels, and legend? Can the graph be understood without the surrounding text?
Assess the accessibility considerations for the display. If applicable, did the colors have sufficient contrast? Did the author include alt text? If so, what was the alt text? Does it do a good job explaining the type of graph, data, and purpose? If not or if the alt text is missing, what would be useful alt text for this display?

Task

Reply to this discussion with your post which should include your display and responses to the above questions.
Reply to each other if you're feeling inspired to do so, though this is not required. Some ideas for replies:
- What is another interesting takeaway from the graph presented beyond the purpose for inclusion?
- What is another graph that could have been interesting to see this data presented with? Why?
- What are some possible explanations for the trend or takeaway from the display?
- What are some ways the creator of the graph could have improved the original graph either for general communication or accessibility?

Criteria for Success

Display of data identified and provided, along with accessible link.
Reasonable purpose provided for inclusion of display in storytelling process.
Meaningful assessment of general communication standards.
Meaningful assessment of accessibility standards.
Appropriate alt text provided.

Need Help Finding a Display?

There's no rush here, so you can wait until inspiration strikes if you would like to just keep an eye out. Another fun way to find a display is to just google: "graph" and then something you're interested in. For instance, here are the results from "graph basketball:"

search results from "graph of basketball" with a lot of bar charts and some timeplots

If you click on one, you can then open up the webpage it was found on. Again, alt text helps these show up in a google search!

You can also go to places that have displays that you can find easily such as:

Graphs in the World - Maria Andersen curates interesting graphs on this Instagram and Facebook page. She provides links to the sources and they tend to be simple graphs with fun stories!
Pew Research Center - You can find a graph for pretty much ANYTHING on Pew's site, along with a lot of research methodology.
Slow Reveal Graphs - A website with graphs of all types.
What's Going on in This Graph - you will have to go to the original articles which are posted after the discussion. These graphs tend to be very meaty - lots of variables displayed, so consider yourself warned.

Need Help Checking Alt Text?

I use the 'Inspect' tool after right clicking on the image (I'm on PC using Chrome as a browser). You can also turn on your screen reader to see what this is actually like for someone who is sight impaired. Here's an article on checking for alt text if you need more help.