Rodent Complaints in NYC

Rodents not only are annoying but they can be potentially harmful to people, communities, and homes. From spreading diseases such as hantavirus, salmonella, rabies, etc. to entailing property damage that can range upwards of thousands of dollars. In order to see how rodents have emerged in NYC and to hopefully recognize patterns for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. So my question is, How long have rats wreaked havoc in NYC? In the future, I hope to add more text to my visualizations, add trend lines, and try more unique styles of data visualizations!

Design Process:

  • Density Map- I knew I wanted a map that can be viewed throughout the years whether that be density or number of cases. In regards to why I chose density (or thermal map), it was more emerging to the viewer rather than a map with the listed amount of cases.
  • Tree Map- Initially I wanted to do a bar graph however I wanted to step outside of my comfort zone and try a new form. I actually quite liked this form of representation! I liked that all the boxes were unified yet all different ranging in size to represent the number of cases.
  • Line Graph- In order to backup the treemap I chose the line graph as a more recognizable data aid. Not only that, I wanted the viewers to see clearly how many more cases there were in certain categories.
  • Color Choices- When I close my eyes and think of “NYC” I think of the yellow taxi cab immediately therefore I wanted to incorporate yellow. Not only did I want yellow, but I wanted it to be accessible to people that may be color blind. Tableau has a built-in color-blind palette feature developed by Maureen Stone and decided to use it for my line graph in which there are 5 categories.
Link:https://public.tableau.com/views/RodentProject1/Dashboard1?:language=en-US&:sid=&:redirect=auth&:display_count=n&:origin=viz_share_link