Graphicacy accepted the challenge and delivered a do-it-yourself visualization powered entirely by a familiar database system: Google Sheets, as described in our team’s Medium post.

For the City Monitor data explorer, Graphicacy used information design best practices and open-source front-end engineering solutions to allow users to explore and compare the latest economic data on the UK’s 63 largest cities and towns. Users can see how the cities and towns are doing against a wide range of economic indicators--with a great focus on how COVID-19 has affected communities. 

Graphicacy needed to design a front-end visualization worthy of the data’s mission. After presenting a few directions, the team chose a spider-style design that showed each city’s performance across 18 economic indicators, including population, employment, earnings, environment, housing, digital connectivity, and COVID-19 impact.

Graphicacy delivered an interactive platform to make the data of the City Monitor program more accessible and useful to its user base of Members of Parliament, policy makers, municipal leaders, and lay audiences. 

“Before, we had a data tool tailored to an analyst audience. This new visualization is an entry point for many other important stakeholders and city leaders,” said Lauren Orso, Centre for Cities’ digital and audience manager. “This is the type of tool we need to help drive policy change.”