Keep Reading!

Description

The project is to collect the data of a daily habit and transfor the dataset into graphic illustration. It is a data visualization project using Json and p5.js. The dataset I am using here is the pages of book I read everyday. Even tho the work load is heavy now, I still try to keep my reading habit everyday even if it's just a few pages a day. So it is also a motivation for me to keep reading.

Design Process

I bought a lot of books recently and haven't got much time to read. So I randomly picked a relatively thinner book to start with. The book looks like following:

The book is very good for those who interested in space and politics and the effect of space. I tried to find some pieces of time to read everyday for 7 days and record how many pages I have been reading. Then I transformed the 7-day data in to a Json style dataset for use.

The dataset, page, includes the date, which day it is, and "high" which represents the highest page number I read that day. I decided to use the form of line chart for visualizing the data set so it could also show the movement of my daily rate.

Reflection

The json confirmation tool recommended by Xin Xin is very useful. My json file is actually very simple so I did not suffer much from that.

By presenting and talking to my instructor in class, I realized that more interactive functions and details could be added to the program. For example, weekly conclusion or other punishment elements could be made to make the program a real software to motivate the readers. I think this is a very good idea to develop more functions to make it more like a reading app.

Ps: I talked to my friends after the class end and figure that we could develop this idea into a real reading apps thing since there aren't too many of them now. There are app notebooks and book searching softwares but I feel like a more focused reading documentation app is needed for people who likes to read, and the notebook and interactive functions should be added in to make the app more fun. We decided to have a try during the winter to see if we can make something ou :)