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Final Research Submission #2

Higher Quality Images: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1QJMXAAMbpSM39m4HqtuM-Bd81MUtHtOE?usp=sharing 

Graphic Elements to Care About

Have a flexible grid system

High contrast colour palette, choose less than 5 colours to use

Visuals > Text, show don’t tell

The Challenges of Design

The content that will be integrated into the design needs to be able to provide the audience with some context before transitioning into a more in depth scope. Images and graphics should be prioritized, as these can easily be understood by all, but should be interlaced with text to balance out our design. User interactions should be integrated seamlessly into the overall design that can enable exploration with ease through simple user inputs. Design needs to fulfil its contextual purpose. Thus, it should be evident that the goal of our design is to inform the user of the number of issues associated with fracking. Also, our research is mainly composed of text, compared to other designs which are more statistics based. This will make it more difficult to find examples of data visualization we can use, as many data strategies can be broken down into numbers and percentages.

Design Precedent #1

This design website’s purpose is to show the progression of a company. Therefore it has a clear flow of logic in the overall layout is narrative driven going from past, present and to the future. The first page shows the company’s past achievement in data types of the form of visualized numbers because these data are facts about the company. Highlighting achievements through numbers or statistics is common practice when marketing a cause or corporation. There is an interesting use of graphics that align with the full bleed image in its background. The second page’s uses what appears to be a line graph where each point aligns with a textbox. These are grouped through the use of similar ellipses and proximity which allows a way to guide the user’s eyes to what content should be next. The final two pages refer to the outlook of the company and a timeline was chosen to represent that. The focus of this design was to clearly layout the summary of the company in the most concise way possible.

https://99designs.ca/infographic-design/contests/beautiful-augmented-reality-infographic-651693

Design Precedent #2

This design demonstrates how to transition from one page to another using a bold colour to lead the eye to the next group of content. In some websites transitions involved only a change in background image or a graphic element. This design uses both. The first page starts with a full bleed and is then cut off with a dark background with a cyan coloured ellipse. Following this is a gallery of images and then followed by another dark coloured background with the cyan elements. Throughout this website the cyan coloured elements are an indicator of where the eye should focus on and where it should go to next. The colour choice played a big role in creating separation between graphics, grids, type and the background.

https://www.downgraf.com/inspiration/colorful-website-designs/

Design Precedent #3

Similar to the Think Design webpage, it utilizes a placement of full-bleed layouts and a flexible grid structure that creates a clear division between content. The full bleed layouts showcases high quality images, covered by an overlay which disappears when hovered upon, which is a user interaction approach used widely across the internet. A flexible grid structure is also seen within the site, where three and five column grids are used to create a more dynamic layout. While each section is quite different in layout, it is unified by the choice of font and colour. The gold tones reflects the elegant theme of the presented architecture and is used in the text to draw the user’s attention. The leading and kerning of the content is also adjusted for the user’s readability. In regards to details we can take and avoid in our own design is located in the first two layouts on the site. On the top homepage, there are two toolbars, one for navigation and the other for social media. We agreed that we would avoid the latter and place the links to the social media platforms on the bottom of the page, closer to the contact us form. This will make the first impression sleeker and the subtle carousel a lot more noticeable. The second section of the website is a good example of data visualization in our layout. As a majority of our research can be summarized in three main points, the usage of icons and symbols with the least amount of text can make our arguments more prominent, even when not reading the large chunk of text on the side.

https://themeforest.net/item/goarch-architecture-psd-template/16643321

Design Precedent #4

This drinking straw infographic is an example we chose for it’s bad data visualization, but good content organization. A large san-serif typeface is used heavily throughout as a header font. However, it’s also used in larger chunks of text, which defeats the purpose of why the type is chosen. There is also a minimal use of graphics that does not explain the content of the poster; the text must be read to understand the argument. The one detail we can take from this poster is the organization of information. It intuitively uses an essay-like format: the large header can be compared to the hook of a paragraph, followed by a short introduction and impact of straws, and ends with the solution to the problem.

http://lifewithoutplasticblog.com/no-plastic-straw-please/ 

Our Wireframes

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1RgLU3qelt_zsFfB753_CrJvsfKbJBpT4?usp=sharing

Type Selection

In our wireframes, we selected three different typefaces: Karla, Ubuntu, and Proxima Neue. They share similar characteristics as a san-serif font, but are classed in different categories. Karla is considered a grotesque typeface, whereas Ubuntu is a modern, humanist typeface. Proxima Neue lies between these two as a modern, but geometric font.

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Final Research Submission #1

Thesis:

The environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, should be acknowledged to communities involved with this method of extracting oil or gas.   

Audience

Raising awareness to areas in British Columbia where fracking is already implemented or will be implemented.

Precedent Disasters

North Dakota is notorious for the amount of spills caused by fracking making it one of the most dangerous states to work in. The numerous amount of spills has caused serious contamination in the soil, water and air which has caused contamination in drinking water and health problems in a state where farming is their main industry.

Overview

Hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, is the process of injecting a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals at high pressures into shale rock to create fissures to access oil or natural gas.

Fracking has increased oil production in countries around the world, especially offering stability to gas companies in Canada and the US, where regulations are more relaxed. However, it has also resulted in leakage of fracking waste, damaging nearby ecosystems and causing a rise of pollutants in water systems

Vocabulary

Shale: Natural gas released through the destruction of rocks using fracking

Colloids: Particles that are released from soil after reacting with fracking waste. They bond toxic materials and heavy metals with soil and sand particles, further polluting the surrounding areas.

Waste pits: A landfill for contaminated water used during fracking.  

Negative Impact on the Environment

Air

Open air dumps leads to chemicals being exposed to air

Causes lung cancer, headaches and other health problems

Creates smog

The release of methane gas into the air is contributing to global warming

Airborne silica, sometimes used in place of sand (crystalline silica), is linked to respiratory diseases such as lung cancer and silicosis

Air pollution from transporting slurry/water from other areas to fracking site

Land

Destruction of the ecosystem

Explosion risks causing collateral damage

Leaking fracking waste dumps

Leakage happening during transport of chemicals and waste

Increased risks of oil spills/leaks from fissures

Has been linked to cause minor earthquakes

The high pressure water loosens colloids from soil, binding itself to toxins that can harm the environment

Destruction of farmland, once the soil is affected by fracking waste or radioactive material, the it is near impossible to produce crops.

Water

Contamination of drinking water

Dangers to wildlife and also food

Excessive use of water leads to droughts

Water may be brought in from other states, because there is not a water source nearby can not only affect nearby cities

Damages are associated with damages in the air and land

Proposed Solutions

Reporting standards

There isn’t a set standard on when a company needs to report a spill that has occurred which leads to a lot of cover ups by big corporations and lack of transparency for the locals who may be affected by the spills. There need to be a rule where spills must be recorded no matter the amount to keep track of damages if may have on the environment.

Reviewing the causes of leakages

Many spills do not indicate the cause of the spill and are usually left as unknown. One way to decrease the spill rate of aging wells is to find out why and where each waste pit is leaking and to correct it in future planning. (Find problems and solve them.)

Changes in Company ethics

ExxonMobile and Chevron voted against releasing research documents of how fracking waste affects water sources.

Find alternatives or renewable sources or ban it

Links

Overview

https://fracfocus.org/chemical-use/what-chemicals-are-used

https://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/health/case_studies/hydrofracking_w.html

Pollution

https://www.psr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/fracking-and-air-pollution.pdf

https://environmentamerica.org/sites/environment/files/reports/EA_FrackingNumbers_scrn.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5633856/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fracking-sludge-in-open-pits-goes-unmonitored-as-health-worries-mount-video/

http://lnginnorthernbc.ca/index.php/learn-more/health-air-quality/water-contamination-from-fracking

https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/benefits-and-dangers-of-fracking.php

https://blog.arcadiapower.com/20-effects-fracking-environment/

North Dakota

https://earthjustice.org/blog/2015-november/in-north-dakota-fracking-could-become-even-more-dangerous

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21022017/fracking-spills-north-dakota-colorado

Potential places of interest

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.est.6b05749

https://snappartnership.net/groups/hydraulic-fracturing/webapp/spills.html

https://cape.ca/campaigns/healthy-sustainable-energy/oil-gas-climate-health/fracking-bc/ https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20150120/map-fracking-boom-state-state

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/26/fracking-the-reality-the-risks-and-what-the-future-holds

https://earthjustice.org/features/campaigns/fracking-across-the-united-states

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/091614/countries-highest-fracking-potential.asp

Solutions

https://www.popsci.com/fracking-fluid-hydraulic-fracturing-spill#page-4

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Day 01