Blog Post 9

The research question I formed was: is there a significant change in the number of free and enslaved people from 1790 to 1820? Flourish was great in taking the data I had to answer this question, and putting into a visual format to be understood better by the viewer. It was an enjoyable experience building this data chart. It was very user friendly, and I had no issues transferring my data into Flourish. It’s very similar to Excel in terms of putting data in, but unlike Excel, it is much easier in turning that data into a chart or graph. I chose to compare the number of free and enslaved people in 1790 and 1820 in Fairfield, Connecticut because I wanted to see if the number of enslaved people would either increase or decrease as 30 years passed. I was actually pleasantly surprised to see the number of enslaved people drop so much after 30 years. I thought it would drop, but not drop that much because slavery was still legal in 1820. I chose Fairfield, Connecticut because it was a highly populated area, and I figured more accuracy would come of this. I chose the bar chart because it is more pleasant on the eyes than a line graph in my opinion. A bar chart is easy to follow and understand, and any viewer should not have any issues deciphering the information presented. The appearance, though, is a little funny because the numbers are so drastically different. It would look this way with any of the graphs that I picked, however, so it has nothing to do with the graph type. A lot of the other graph types would have worked with my data. It was just a personal preference for me in choosing the bar graph. I feel the other types of graphs are better for a bunch of different numbers and variables, and the bar graph is better for less numbers and variables. Overall, using Flourish was a very positive experience, and I would definitely use it again in graphing data instead of the excel graphs, which can be hard to create and format.