State page year selector design

[ericronne]

The current design of interactive-data modules on the states page includes a selector, which defaults to the most-recent year for which we have data (2013 in the example below). Since the year is always different from the current year (2016), this has caused some confusion in our armchair usability testing sessions.

One potential solution is to include the non-data years in the selector, but treat them differently....

These non-data years could perhaps be clickable. If one was selected, an explanation of why we have no data could appear in the chart area.

• Create a prototype
• Test it

[ericronne]

@meiqimichelle @coreycaitlin @gemfarmer fyi

[ericronne]

[ericronne]

@coreycaitlin @meiqimichelle

Will this design for the "no data" years give us problems with some categories, since we may have 2012 data for federal coal in Utah, eg, but not have any 2012 data for federal biomass in Utah?

hrumph.

[ericronne]

Ok after chatting with @meiqimichelle, this "no data" approach may work after all (but we will have to explain some of the oddball situations in the copy, @coreycaitlin). Here's a modified gif, where i've instead grayed out the charts for non-data years. That way we won't have to worry about the page getting longer and shorter. NOTE: this design is old, but updating for the prototype would be time consuming.

Will do a quick test or two...

cc @gemfarmer

[ericronne]

Did two quick tests on the selector; both people grokked it immediately. Also tested the bar chart interaction and a couple other state-page elements with one of the users. All in the ever-growing test-notes doc

Implement-able @meiqimichelle?

[meiqimichelle]

I believe @shawnbot and @gemfarmer may have started working on the selector yesterday, yays -- tracked in #1588