The State of the USA represents a strategic investment in the underpinnings necessary for a 21st century civic dialogue and policy process where collective accountability for results is the norm rather than the exception.

Judith Rodin, President of the Rockefeller Foundation

How State of the USA Will Work: One Scenario

The State of the USA is developing a free Web service to make key measures of U.S. progress across a range of issues available and understandable to all. Its audience will include policy makers, media representatives and scholars, but also engaged citizens in search of everyday solutions.

The following scenario illustrates how one person might use the future State of the USA Web site to address an issue confronting her family. While the State of the USA site will highlight connections and interrelationships among a range of issues, such as health, the economy and the environment, it will also enable drill downs into each issue area to facilitate additional discovery within specific topics.

In developing this and other scenarios, State of the USA tasked real people with specific investigations and examined how they would fare using currently available Web services and research tools. With an understanding of today's information challenges, we then considered what tools and experiences would better assist users in preparing to engage the issues that matter most to them. Those conclusions will help inform decisions about feature development for the new site.

The following scenario is one result of that effort.

— Howard Parnell, V.P., Content and Creative, State of the USA

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Meet "Mary Jo"

Mary Jo

Mary Jo is a single parent living in suburban Akron, OH. She has an associate's degree and works as an office manager at a law firm that specializes in class action law suits. She earns a modest salary. Jason, her son, is dangerously overweight and was recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Mary Jo is by no means an expert in medicine, but her son's diagnosis has motivated her to learn more about obesity, and what she can do to help her son. She is highly motivated, but also very busy and distracted.

Mary Jo is technically savvy and an avid Internet user. However, she is also skeptical, not trusting much of what she reads, especially on the Internet. Her work at the law firm has shown that, with the right resources, determined individuals can effect change. She seeks answers and the first place she looks is online. The only uninterrupted free time she has in the day is her 45-minute lunch break. She will use this time to perform her online research.

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"Jason is obese. What can I do?"

Mary Jo selects the drill down link from her Google results and comes to a clearly labeled data page that she immediately understands.

Mary Jo performs a Google search for keywords "overweight children data in America" and discovers the State of the USA site (SUSA), in three of the top five results. The first non-sponsored result listed is "Childhood Obesity in America—the State of the USA."

Mary Jo clicks on the link and is delivered to the State of the USA page with an interactive graph that is clearly labeled "Childhood obesity rates – U.S." This shows a rising trend in childhood obesity over the past decade. She looks around to see if she can get more information on her local area, and sees a note that childhood obesity statistics are not available at the state level because the sample size of the source survey is too small, but adult obesity rates are available for states and counties. She clicks to see a state-by-state comparison of adult obesity rates on a color coded map.

Mary Jo begins to push her mouse around the map and notices panels turning on when she hovers over states.

She selects Ohio and the map zooms in on her state. She moves her cursor over the map and notices that the counties are clickable. A panel appears when she hovers over the Akron area, showing that the rate in Summit County is 11%. She also sees a link to a local indicator effort called the "Summit County Indicator Project."

When Mary Jo clicks through to this local site, she's pleased to find a map that is similar to the map she's just seen in State of the USA. Curious, she goes to About SCIP and finds that it is part of a consortium of independent local indicator projects and State of the USA that share technology, expertise, and ideas. Mary Jo bookmarks the site for future reference, and returns to her task, where she quickly finds that her area has an elevated obesity rate, much worse than the U.S. average she had seen earlier in State of the USA.

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"This looks useful."

Curious, Mary Jo clicks on the "save this data" button, which displays in-page login fields and a "Register Now" button to save her work. This is her first time on the site so she clicks "Register Now." A larger in-page box appears above the map (she has not left her data page) with fields requesting her e-mail address and a password. She provides the required information, which is accepted. She is then shown a message that her new account has been created and her map is now saved.

Mary Jo starts to save the map and is prompted to create a profile.

Satisfied that her information is saved and she is done with registration Mary Jo closes the registration panel. Mary Jo notices that the page has added messaging. Mary Jo sees her e-mail address in the top left corner and she sees the data she just saved listed on the left-hand side of the screen. Mary Jo is now more than confident that her map is retrievable.

She closes the module and returns to the map, which has new messaging showing her that it is saved. She clicks on the article she wanted to read.

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Mary Jo views an article that discusses schools in counties and states throughout the United States that are adopting policies to get kids trimmer and healthier.

"These policies seem promising; I wonder if they work."

The link delivers her to an article that discusses schools in counties and states throughout the United States that are adopting policies to get kids trimmer and healthier. These include simple solutions such as cashless cafeterias, removing soda machines, and increasing and updating physical education programs. Mary Jo clicks on the "save this article" link and the page delivers messaging that the article is now bookmarked.

Mary Jo would like to look at the data as a bar graph because she is not familar with New Jersey geography, but does know the names of the counties from the article. Mary Jo sees the button next to the save button that has a bar graph icon on it. She clicks on it and is given a bar graph that is broken down by county using the same color key.

Mary Jo returns to her map and zooms out to the United States again. She re-zooms into the states she remembers from the article that have been successful in reducing childhood obesity. She quickly discovers that they have much lower numbers than her community. She now wants to see if the policies she read about can be attributed to the reduction. She goes to a date slider and moves it back five years, noticing that obesity rates were higher in the past. She deduces that the policies must have something to do with it. She converts the map to a bar graph using an easily found "displays" button on the map. In two clicks she has a bar graph displaying the county's reduction of obesity rates over time. She saves the new graph then graphs another jurisdiction for comparison, which she also saves.

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"Do other parents know about these solutions?"

Mary Jo is very excited about the data she finds, but her skepticism kicks in and she questions where all this great data is coming from. She quickly scans the page and sees a button clearly labeled "About This Data." She clicks on it and gets an in-page text screen explaining SUSA's mission and methodology, as well as the origin of the cited data. There are links to the organization's Web site and a profile for the group.

Mary Jo is a skeptical Internet user. Before she continues, she would like to know more about the data she is going to use to make her case for change. Mary Jo clicks on this “about the data” link and is delivered a screen that gives her an overview of SUSA, how it works, and where this data has come from. This makes her feel even more confident about the information she has found.

Mary Jo decides to contact John to share her situation and see if he has any insights to offer.

Mary Jo notices a list labeled "Public Folders That Include This Data." She clicks on one and is directed to a page that shows all the graphs, articles, and charts another user has collected and shared on the SUSA site. Leveraging this user's research, she clicks through the various maps and articles and bookmarks those she finds relevant.

She notices a "Contact This Person" button on the profile page and decides to reach out, share her story, and ask for guidance and help.

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"The PTA should implement these policies."

Mary Jo looks at the clock and realizes she has five minutes left before she has to get back to work. She hasn't touched her sandwich nor found anything that could help her understand or change her son's situation.

Mary Jo notices that her time is running out, but she wants to capture all of her work so she can look at it more closely later tonight. Looking at her saved work, she notices a button labeled "Download All Saved Research." She clicks on it and an in-page box appears displaying her save options.

Mary Jo has a lot of great information that she wants to review later. Mary Jo clicks the “Download” link...

...and all her saved research is downloaded to her computer.

 

Armed with SUSA information that was easy to assemble, download, print, and combine with her own online and offline knowledge-gathering and ideas, Mary Jo plans to prepare a presentation about obesity challenges and solutions to take to the PTA, the school board, and the city council. Thanks to SUSA, she has an informed and impactful way to help her son and her community.

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Additional Benefits

  • SUSA may have related resources, such as articles, associated with the charts and graphs.
  • SUSA can make these items easily accessible but allow the user to maintain their position on the SUSA site.
  • SUSA may have a function to allow the user to store data he or she is browsing.
  • Data will be contextualized and easy-to-understand to make the user experience direct, simple, and intuitive.
  • The SUSA site will contain as much interrelated data as possible to enable users to explore their concerns in the greatest depth possible.
  • SUSA will be transparent about its processes and data sources.
  • Users will be allowed to choose to make their collections public so they can connect with each other, and leverage each other's research.
  • All downloadable SUSA data will be branded and contain links back to the SUSA Web site and to the original source data.

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