Project Overview
Latinitas, an Austin-based non-profit, aims to empower young Latina women through skills in STEM and media. The non-profit provides direct digital media and technology training and self-esteem boosting services to girls in the Austin-area. Latinitas has served over 10,000 girls since its inception. As a data intern, I have to find various ways to use their data that would be of use to them. I was able to create an interactive database, infographic, and an information dashboard as shown below.
The Problem?
All of the organization's data is currently stored in a Google Drive with no organization, and have no idea how to showcase the data to potential donors, sponsors, and schools. The CEO and Program Director wanted a set regulatory standard as well as a way to visualize the data in an accessible format. Furthermore, the organization needed a way to visualize their data.
The Solution?
Using their data, I did various types of projects that showcase their data. I have created an information dashboard and infographic to showcase aspects of their data. As my capstone project, I built a MySQL database that will visualize their data using PHP, HTML, and Python.
Database Capstone Project:
Latinitas, a local non-profit, is making a significant impact in the Austin and El Paso communities by introducing STEM and media technologies to Latina youth. For example, 92 percent of Latinitas alumni graduated high school in 4 years.
Knowing the tremendous impact of the non-profit, the organization needed a way to store and visualize its data to keep track of the attendance of the non-profit’s programming.
Knowing the tremendous impact of the non-profit, the organization needed a way to store and visualize its data to keep track of the attendance of the non-profit’s programming.
My solution?
I broke down the capstone project in four steps to create an interactive database that allowed users to visualize the data they needed:
- Clean and organize the data using Excel and OpenRefine
- Set up an online server to store the data using MySQL
- Use Python, PHP, and SQL to create the search form, create the search queries, create the table, and visualize the data from the search query into a bar chart
- Use HTML/CSS to create the layout, navigation sidebar, and give the database a beautiful, user-friendly look
Skills Used?
To complete my capstone, I used various tools to create the database:
- Excel
- OpenRefine
- MySQL
- Python
- PHP
- HTML
- CSS
The Process?
What does it do?
The interactive database is simple to use. The homepage shows a submission form that allows the user to select what data they need. When the form is submitted, the user is taken to a results page that showcases the data in a table. Three options are featured underneath the table that allows the user to choose what type of attendance they want to be visualized. After submitting that form, the user is taken to a new page that shows the visualizations the user wanted.
The database features a data dictionary, a simple navigation bar, and information regarding the database, such as how it works, and a link to the Latinitas website.
The database features a data dictionary, a simple navigation bar, and information regarding the database, such as how it works, and a link to the Latinitas website.
Link to Database?
Unfortunately, not a lot of data was given to me for the database. If you would like to see how it works, and be guaranteed to see a visualization, choose "Workshops," "September," and "2016."
Link is here.
Link is here.
Poster:
The capstone project had to be presented at the iSchool's annual open house. The poster was designed with Google Drawings.
Information Dashboard:
Latinitas has data on their programming, which ranges in workshops, clubs, events, and camps. Local tech companies sponsor many of the programs, so the organization needed a way to showcase the value of their activities. Because of this, I wanted to feature attendance numbers in their Austin and El Paso locations. I manually cleaned up the data using Microsoft Excel and used Qlik to visualize and design.
| Qlik File for Information Dashboard |
Infographic:
Creating the infographic was an essential piece of using non-programming data. The infographic used other types of data that could be used to visualize the large impact Latinitas has made for Latina youth in low-income communities. I created the graphic using Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop.
