The Great British Class Calculator

– with Applied Works –

Award-winning, interactive Class Calculator following the largest ever study of British social class.

The Great British Class Survey was a collaboration between BBC Lab UK and prominent sociologists from leading universities. In an attempt to remodel traditional definitions of social class they gathered and processed the responses of over 161,000 people.

Whilst the sociologists were still processing their data we used their initial findings and hypotheses to build a prototype to demonstrate how the information could be presented in an entertaining and personalised way.

BBC News Online then asked us to develop a fully functioning calculator after the statistical analysis was complete and seven new social class groupings had been defined. Users were asked to indicate their economic wealth, their social connections and cultural interests and then placed in the new class model on a ‘nearest match’ basis.

Featured on the BBC’s homepage, our Class Calculator achieved six million views in 24 hours, was the site’s second most viewed page of the year, and the most shared ever. With around 25% of traffic coming from social media, a third were mobile views. In June 2013 the Class Calculator won a data journalism award.

looking at the initial findings from the sociologists

Looking at the initial findings from the sociologists

Looking at initial archetypes

Looking at initial archetypes

Mapping the capital landscape based online questionare and looking at groupings

Mapping the capital landscape based online questionare and looking at groupings

Initial sketches looking at navigation and content components

Initial sketches looking at navigation and content components

Looking at ways to compare across the other archetypes.

Looking at ways to compare across the other archetypes.

Translating the initial sketches into basic wireframes

Translating the initial sketches into basic wireframes

Looking at visual representation of data

Looking at visual representation of data

Looking at the visual representation of the data viz

Looking at the visual representation of the data viz

Initial page designs looking at how to integrate contextual information

Initial page designs looking at how to integrate contextual information

Archetype comparison dataviz

Archetype comparison dataviz

Initial archetype illustrations

Initial archetype illustrations

Looking at how to make the initial questions playful and engaging

Looking at how to make the initial questions playful and engaging

Page design for first prototype

Page design for first prototype

First digital prototype

First digital prototype

BBC Class Calculator first digital prototype

Final archetypes

Final archetypes

New illustrations for new archetypes

New illustrations for final archetypes

BBC Class Calculator from Applied Works on Vimeo.

At launch the Class Calculator achieved 6 Million page views in 24 hours, a third of which via mobile

At launch the Class Calculator achieved 6 Million page views in 24 hours, a third of which via mobile

The results from BBC Lab UK’s Great British Class Survey reveal a brand new class system of seven groups.

Try The Great British class calculator: What class are you? to see where you fit in: