This project was self-initiated partly because I genuinely wanted to answer these questions, and also with the intent of presenting them at the 2012 Visualized conference.
The eighty-ish goals and subgoals that comprised the 2015 Millennium Development Goals were a combination of quantitative and quantitative units. The ultimate challenge was to find a common scale to indicate progress across disparate measures.
From a common unit of indicating progress, the next challenge was finding a structure for users to dig into specific areas and clearly follow the narrative from macro to micro level, with each sub-indicator broken out at a global, regional, and country level.
I was also interested in the idea that an incomplete dataset was just as telling as a complete one, particularly in this context where political and economic forces were at play. I iterated on a series of Processing sketches that visualized how complete the datasets were for each MDG indicator and each country, and then designed a simple web interface that showed users the structure of the indicators, the current state of each one, and the strengths and weaknesses in the data collection across the globe.
Unbeknownst to me, the data team from the World Bank was in this audience! They also had no idea that they would be on the receiving end of my unsolicited advice. We met up later and they were able to share a ton of feedback. The World Bank Open Data project remains one the most astounding resources for comprehensive data about global issues, and more than a few specific global indicators (like child mortality) served as foundation for future design projects.
The MDGs were designed for a target date of 2015. They were succeeded by the Sustainable Development Goals with a target date of 2030.
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While this began as a self-initiated project in anticipation of representing Fathom as a speaker in the Visualized Conference, the final product owes its completion to the feedback and assistance of the entire Fathom team.