The Dashboard: Financial Tracker for The New School
Sidhya Tikku
The Dashboard presents a summary of The New School’s financial data that allows users to interact with data visualizations in order to draw comparisons and make their own analysis about the university’s revenue, expenditure, salaries, assets, and liabilities.
My journey at Parsons has not been easy as the university was struggling with its finances and the community was riddled with uncertainty. This project was created out of growing frustration amongst The New School community and the alleged disproportionate allocation of wages and funds.
The idea was simple: solve a pain-point that affects me and the community at large with the values this community has taught me: creativity, innovation, and a desire to challenge the status-quo. The aim of my design thesis is to take the university’s complex financial data and present it to the Parsons community—primarily the students, parents, staff, and professors—in a clear and digestible format, with a focus on transparency and accessibility.
The Dashboard is a simple tool that takes the financial data from the university’s filings to the IRS and visualizes it in a cohesive and accessible format using creative visualizations, graphs, and charts. The Dashboard provides users with customizable filters to make their own analysis of the university’s financial data during the 2018–2022 period and the users also have the option to export their findings. Ultimately, The Dashboard serves as a tool leveraging the principles of information design to enhance transparency and accountability within The New School community.