Project Details
- Client : CRWA
- What I Did : Volunteer Project Lead
- Timeframe : January 2020 - Present
- Code : GitHub repo
Data consulting for CRWA - Safe Water project
I volunteer at Code for Boston, a Code for America brigade. Code for Boston addresses local social and civic challenges through creative uses of technology. There, I co-lead the Safe Water project. Generally, our group is interested in predicting and visualizing the presence of hazardous drinking and surface water contaminants.
In this specific project, we help the Charles River Watershed Association deploying a predictive model, as well as visualizing and communicating their data with the public and their stakeholders.
The project consists of understanding the data management process and its pain points, as well as conducting user research, in order to propose solutions adapted to a small non-profit organization. I coordinate a team of 15 consisting of user experience researchers, designers, data analysts, data scientists, and other developers. Together, we propose, design, and build solutions to enhance CRWA’s data-driven capabilities.
What we do
We are deploying a predictive model with Python and Flask. Based on live data, it predicts if it is safe to boat on the Charles River and is used by local boathouses.
We are understanding the needs of the users and the organization with interviews and surveys.
How are we doing? CRWA has been working with @CodeForBoston to improve its data systems and communication of datasets. For the next two weeks, we are asking for feedback through an anonymous short 10 minute survey: https://t.co/hhjQSuCzcE pic.twitter.com/wBpYE1Fzk7
— Charles River Watershed Association (@charlesriver) June 17, 2020
We are designing an ArcGIS web app.
We are designing visualization to communicate the river quality data.
And finally, we are democratizing access to data inside the organization and proposing the right data visualization tool for their purposes.
- Is the primary purpose of the visualization tool(s) more internal, i.e. Business Intelligence?
- Or is the primary purpose communication?
- Does a map have to take center stage?
- Can a solution that requires coding to create and update the plots be maintained internally?
