We've just wrapped up an enriching project in our Design 5505 Information Design course for non-majors, taught by Associate Professor Yvette Shen.

In this project students were tasked with visualizing a week of self-tracked gratitude journals. Undergraduate students majoring in Data Analytics took on the challenge of merging self-tracked emotional data with their analytics and design skills. This engaging assignment is a key part of Professor Shen's ongoing efforts to connect the field of information design with aspects of personal well-being. The students spent a week noting down their moments of gratitude and then turned these personal reflections into meaningful data visualizations. The project underscores the multifaceted potential of information design: it serves not only as a medium for revealing knowledge and insights but also as a tool for supporting personal well-being. Through the students' work, we also learned that petting a cat can be a shortcut to gratitude enlightenment!