Final Project- Group Rationale

Group Rationale:

When our group got together for the first time to plan out our final project, we started by brainstorming a list of ideas for our visual. On this list were things like “3D brain”, board games, and 3D mind maps. Ultimately we wanted to do something creative as well as interactive. Our initial idea was to create a replica of a brain and have the different topics we discussed this semester sticking out of the brain. This would show that visual communication has a lot to do with our minds and how we perceive things. Unfortunately, as cool as this idea was, we wanted to make our project interactive so that our audience would have to physically do something in order to learn about visual communication. We thought that making the visual interactive would be a great way to keep our audience focused and interested in the subject matter since they would be working towards an end goal.

Our next idea was to make a board game. We thought this would be the winning idea for sure. We came up with the list of topics from the semester and started sketching out what we wanted the game to look like. We took inspiration from popular board games that we grew up playing and tried to come up with rules for the game. This idea got messy pretty quickly. The game ended up being too complicated, to the point where we weren’t even sure how to play it and as a result, we went back to the drawing board.

Our next idea was to create a little town dedicated to visual communication. We decided to have various buildings and each building would have a designated topic from the semester assigned to it. As we were thinking of buildings, we thought it more appropriate to dedicate a college campus to visual communication instead, and thus we came up with O’Connell’s University of Visual Communication. Making a college campus made it more relatable to our audience, which would be other college students.  As we got to making the actual visual and deciding what we wanted to include, we thought we could make the design festive and fun. Since the holidays are coming up, we decided to make the university Christmas themed, equipped with red and green buildings, as well as fake snow!

Each building on campus was assigned a different topic from this past semester. We printed out examples of each type of visual from our blogs and wrote about what each one was. We placed the visuals under pieces of paper so that whoever was viewing our project would have to interact with it to learn something about visual communication. We also added important “buzz” words such as line, Gestalt, and size, where appropriate to further demonstrate examples from class. As we were making our visual, we thought of a way to make our project into somewhat of a board game that would not be too complicated. We bought little toy cars that would act as player’s pieces, and in order to win the game, you must be the first to stop at each building on campus and learn about visual communication. Our goal for this project was to make a fun, interactive and informative visual and we feel as though we succeeded in doing so.

Personal Reflection:

 REFLECTION: What were you trying to achieve? We were trying to achieve a complex visual that would do the best job to explain to a student a full semesters of work if they have never taken the class before. This was harder than we thought because there were so many different topics covered so we decided to hone in on the assignments as our main focus. We decided to have a main focus because if not everything else would get cluttered if you added too much information and it would disrupt the cognitive load. Doing so, we ended up adding the assignment that best connected to the specific university building, and added the purpose of the assignment, the audience, the context, and how to create it. This felt very organized to us and having it in a university setting helped our audience of students to connect and be able to navigate easier. Finally, having this university setting helped because it allowed students to have to hit each stop before making it out of the university.

REFLECTION: What problems did you encounter and how did you solve them? At first, we encountered many problems. We had so many cool ideas on how to create the best complex visual that we really had to think through each of the ideas and figure out why it wouldn’t be the best one to offer. We had one really good idea where we would create a board game and the first few rolls would be going through branches of a mind map, then it lead to a flow chart that they had to make specific decisions, and kept incorporating each blog assignment as we went on. This was great at first but not all blog assignments reflected this flow of material so we decided to make it easier and also less confusing by using the university idea. One other problem we had when we finally were set on the university idea was figuring out how we were going to add all of our ideas again in one overall design. We were considering buying army men, doing a Santa Land, calling it Professor O’Connell’s global village. These were great ideas but again, there were just too many things going on. So we decided we could take the festive Christmas theme to the university and that worked out best.

REFLECTION: What was your AHA! moment? Our AHA! Moment was when we found out that we could combine two of our ideas into one great idea. We also liked that this was 3d because it made it more fun to look at. We really loved the Christmas theme because this is the last project setting us away from Christmas break with our families so we all got together for a few hours each day, blasted cheerful Holiday music, and got it done very efficiently and smoothly. I am so happy with out groups overall teamwork and togetherness.

 REFLECTION: What connections did you make to what you have learned in the readings and in class? The biggest connection was when we learned about the best organization practices for qualitative and quantitative data. There was so much data here if we didn’t plan and make a lot of drafts and iterations than it probably wouldn’t come out as organized as we would like it to and that is clearly a problem when tying to convey information to a viewer who has not seen something ever before. We also showed specific examples of theorist teachings such as Occam’s Razor, and Shriver’s model in our assignments along the way. Finally, we even connected little things like size, and proportion by making the snowman a little larger to use a different technique.

REFLECTION: What would you do differently had you more time or resources? If we had more time and resources we would probably add to the poster board different theorists for each of the assignments that we had examples of. We just wanted to give them a more generalized idea though because it would be terrible to overwhelm someone with so much information that it would deter them from actually learning and getting anything out of it.

Draft 1

First Iteration

Final Product

Visual Resume

What were you trying to achieve? For this assignment our job was to tells a complex informational story about ourselves about our accomplishments and life paths at one view. This was designed to be focused towards an audience full of potential employers and internship mentors, so you wanted the information to convey in a positive manner that sold you in the job market.

What problems did you encountered and how did you solved them? The problems that I encountered was how I wanted to convey the different varieties of information. Some of the information on my actual resume would be better as a quantitate visual than a qualitative as well as the opposite situation for other sets of information on my resume. I had to make the decision, as well as look at Randy Krum’s website again to generate some great ideas on what type of graphs I should try out to enhance my resume and visuals.

 What was your AHA! moment? My AHA! moment was when I took a day off from making my resume to modify and make changes. I needed to step away from the assignment to generate some creative juices and I realized that the qualitative information drove my devisions on what to use for the quantitate information. I also realized that formatting and size is important to enhance a resume’s overall look. 

Finally, I realized that I am a creative individual and wanted to show that on my resume. In order to do this I also added one extra graph to my visual resume that showed all of my different skills that I have to offer in the form of a word cloud. I really liked this and was also able to use pretty colors I liked to help that section stand out a little more.

 What connections did you make to what you have learned in the readings and in class? The connections were combine with so many different assignments that we have done. In class we have talked immensely about how to use mind maps to reduce cognitive load and organize thoughts in a better way. I used this to separate my internship opportunities, awards and memberships. It was an awesome help and really helped show two different sides about me that I heavily identify with. Also, many of our past blogs involved how to make timelines, diagrams, and flow charts to keep information stored in an organized way that was easy to follow. Employers want to able to clearly understand someone they are interviewing so the thought to make different pie charts and line graphs where they could clearly see different splits in color, really would help reduce their cognitive load. I really wouldn’t know how to make these types of graphs very well to show this type of data, or even use excel opportunities in Google if past classes didn’t help provide information on this subject. 

 What would you do differently had you more time or resources? If I had more time I would fix my line graph talking about my GPA. On a positive note, my GPA has always been around 3.8-4.0. I am proud of this average but the way I made it on the line graph, I used a short scale variance so it made the results look more drastic. This was dangerous when I went from a  4.0 to 3.85 after my freshman year. The difference really isn’t that much but for an employee who is looking at it quickly, they might receive a negative perception instead of a positive. I would change the variance to a bigger scale so the results reflected it more accurately. 

Outline: 

Draft 2:

Final: 

 

One Subject Info-graphic:

What were you trying to achieve? For this assignment I was trying to tell a complex informational story to people that were interested in a particular subject. I decided to hone in on the topic of the moon and specifically talk about facts about the moon and how it is able to circulate around earth. This story includes the moons diameter, how far it is from Earth, how many days it usually takes, and more. It also shows the picture of the different phases of the moon in rotation as well as the times, and angles it will be at during a specific hour.

• What problems did you encountered and how did you solved them? The Problems that I encountered during this blog post was trying to figure out the best way to convey the information without making it too cluttered. I figured putting the facts into the moon and titling the moon phase on the outside would be the most organized way of doing so. I also made the graphic on Google Presentation, and after i created the actual image I decided to fill in the circles with actual pictures of the moon and Earth so the graphic looked more realistic than just circular shapes.
• What was your AHA! moment? My AHA! moment was when I found a great website talking about space. I realized that I really enjoyed this topic and since we have been talking about the Challenger lately, that I wanted to learn more about space in general. I then did more research and decided I actually wanted to hone in on the moon because it is a truly interesting cycle when it circulates around the sun. From doing this assignment I now know the different phases of the moon by name, as well as by shape.
• What connections did you make to what you have learned in the readings and in class? The connections that I made in class were when we talk about how to organize qualitative data in general. We used the example of the pumpkin graphic that a past student drew as a “good example” because it showed the different parts that go into a pumpkin as a whole, while also offering statistical information to back it up. Similarly, the image that I created also showed the different parts (or phases) of the moon as it circulates around the sun. The facts helped to inform readers about the process so they now can have a different and more concrete understanding of light every time they walk outside.
• What would you do differently had you more time or resources? If I had more time and resources I would figure out how to split the circle diagram in half and quarters so I could completely show the audience what the quarter moon, and crescent moon looks like. It was very difficult and when I researched online it said I would need to buy another program to do so. Instead I just used the image of the moon as a symbolic representation, and then labeled the individual circle representations as what they should be when they reach each specific time.

Final Product:

Draft 2:

First Draft:

Draft:

 

Simple Tables to Graphs

To create my graphs, I worked with the chart function in PowerPoint in order to create a good design. This allowed me the freedom to represent the data however I wanted and in a variety of ways, and also gave me a visual look at the data I was trying to represent. However, after I created the graphs, I had some difficulty changing the data when I realized that parts were incorrect. I also struggled a bit with trying to find the most concise wording for all three of the graphs I made.

What were you trying to achieve? For this assignment, we were creating graphs out of table information regarding how far away we are from graduating. We have just completed advising and planning for graduation, and it was important to see in different visuals how close we were from our big day.

What problems did you encounter and how did you solve them? I encountered a ton of problems during this assignment. First of all I hate anything to do with statistics and numbers. I am a creative and right side of the brain type of person and this assignment made me cringe trying to figure out how to make graphs using excel and Google Docs. I also only have 4 more classes total until I graduate so I was having a hard time planning how to create this graphic to show a lot of information so there was actually things to compare.

What was your AHA! moment? My AHA! moment occurred when I finally figured out how to organize my classes already taken opposed to classes I still needed to take. I broke it down by Major, Minor, Electives, and Skills, while used this set of data against what I still needed to take total. It was the most beneficial for me to understand. My second AHA! Moment appeared after we discussed this blog post in class. I realized it also really benefitted when all the graphs were organized together in four boxed next to each other with the metaphorical graphic is also better organized as one whole image that has parts to it instead of 6 images like I had in the beginning.

What connections did you make to what you have learned in the readings and in class? I made connections to what we learned in class about creating graphs during certain situations such as when we were speaking about the Challenger. Class has also taught me how well Pie and Bar graphs help to convey such statistics and that you can do so in a creative way, such as the cap example.

What would you do differently if you had more time or resources? If I had more time or resources, I probably re-design my whole chart. I would go to Professor O’Connell for extra help and be sure that I completely tackled what I was being asked of me.

Which format does the best job at conveying helpful information?The formats that did the best to help me with this assignment was using a bar and pie chart. I liked these visuals, especially the pie chart because you were able to see the information as a whole piece and it was easier on the cognitive load to understand and process.

Don’t forget to reflect on the experience of working with tools like Google Docs in getting a GOOD design together. What did it let you do? What did you have difficulty changing?

Google Docs was very confusing due to the fact that I barley ever use it. I liked professor O’Connells template to help organize all the data but it was a pretty big template so there was a lot of information to add which made it more difficult for me to figure out how to condense the information and concentrate on only one section.

Draft:

Explanation Graphic

Explain your design decisions in terms of how you managed the memory and cognitive load issues in the graphic.

I chose a cell phone that is used a lot by an adult demographic, yet is still not completely informed about all that their phone can offer. This graphic would help individuals that are not familiar with the Blackberry cell phone to understand how to use it, what benefits they can get from it, and even explain how to do simple things like put the phone on silent when they are in a meeting. I started off looking online at different blackberry’s to make sure I didn’t miss any key steps. Then for my first draft I tried sketching the graphic from different angles to show all the different parts on and help them get an idea of the shape and thickness of the phone. Next, I added shorted explanations of each function so they an quickly glance at the phone and make the comparison. Finally, I brought these sketches to life by using a real picture of a Blackberry online and adding the text and arrows next to the pictures to help be even more specific about what I was referring to. The arrows and words did a great job complimenting the pictures, just as explained in Shriver’s model.

This explanation graphic did a great job to help lower the cognitive load of another individual because some people are visual learners so the picture next to the context helped as another way of helping the user understand the information being conveyed. One research method that helps my design decision was the Dual Coding theory that explains how both verbal and visual codes can be used when recalling information, just as used in this explanation graphic of the Blackberry.

Indicate which of Schriver’s combinations applies to your graphic (Complementary or Supplementary).
For the Schriver’s Model my explanation graphic applies to the complementary combination. This is because I used both visual and verbal modes to complement each other and use to fully explain the product.

What were you trying to achieve?
In doing this assignment I was trying to use both visual and verbal modes to visualize the parts of an Blackberry phone for users. Also, this assignment helped me to reduce the cognitive load of the end users.

What problems did you encountered and how did you solved them?
One problem I encountered was trying to figure out how to place the arrows so it was neat and didn’t get the end user more confused in the long run.

What was your AHA! moment?
My AHA! moment was when I realized that it would be most beneficial if no arrows crossed so that someone in an older generation, or someone with bad eye sight in general would not get the buttons mistaken.

What connections did you make to what you have learned in the readings and in class?
This blog assignment directly relates to Schiver’s Model combinations and specifically my graphic relates to a complimentary combination.

What would you do differently had you more time or resources?
If I had more time and resources I would try to find a larger picture so people with bad eyes could see the arrows even better. I would also maybe try to change the color of the arrows so they wouldn’t blend in with the screen.

Rough Draft:

Second Draft:

Final Draft:

Flowcharts

What were you trying to achieve? For this blog assignment we were pretending to be on a design team for Dr. O’Connell who wanted to give first semester freshman a visual guide to the Advising process. Due to the fact that the Advising process can be complicated to first-year students, our goal was to decrease the cognitive load of these students by simplifying instructions in the form of a flow chart diagram.

What problems did you encountered and how did you solve them? I encountered many problems during this assignment. I first struggled to remember all the steps of the advising process due to the fact that I am a senior and it has become muscle memory for me at this time. I also struggled to find the best way to make this chart easily understood to a younger demographic because they might not have been introduced to things like “MyRWU” at that time. I solved these problems by speaking with my freshman cousin and his sophomore friends who go to this school; they helped refresh my memory on any main points that I may have missed out on. They also helped me to determine what information was easily understood, opposed to what information was confusing in the eyes of a freshman.

What was your AHA! moment? I think my AHA! moment was the second time around when I realized color was not the most accurate way to conduct a flow chart. Instead, I switched this in my final draft so all the criteria was black and white, but the beginning and end points were bolded so people could see the difference better. I also had an AHA! moment when I figured out the correct way to create loops and arrows to send a user back on the flowchart if they were missing a step. I pretended I was using the flowchart myself and went through the steps to be sure it was a smooth process.

What connections did you make to what you have learned in the readings and in class? This assignment relates to our discussion in class on Occam’s Razor. There are many steps in this process that we either know we know, don’t know we know, know we don’t know, or don’t know that we don’t know. It is hard to create an informative diagram without brainstorming with others to be sure that everything is completely added, and nothing was left out, accidentally or not. Many times by brainstorming prior to creating a diagram such as a flow chart, even a senior will be given a piece of information that they didn’t realize they didn’t even know about, and this information could even make their life easier in the long run as well.

Finally, another connection that can be made involves our reoccurring discussion on cognitive load. Cognitive load can be described as ‘the burden on working memory during processing of information’. As a freshman the individual might experience over processing of information in their minds, and it will just add to the stress of first semester problems in the long run. Our goal was to reduce this cognitive load, and using a flow chart is another great way to do organize information in a simple and fun way to read.

What would you do differently had you more time or resources? If I had more time I would keep making a few more rough drafts and play around with the format until I was 100% comfortable that it was the easiest way to display the information. I would even look at other examples to see if there was any information that I didn’t realize I left out, to be sure I am giving the freshman my best work, and helping them out as best as possible without actually doing the work for them.

Draft One: 

Draft Two: 

Final Product: 

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Storyboard

For this blog assignment our task was to create a storyboard with one image used in the post, then create a narrative around it using only four frames. Secondly, we would repeat the same process but instead using two of the images provided. It was really exciting because it allowed creators to use their imagination and decide what was going to happen in the story.

For my first storyboard I decided to choose the photograph I used the young girl that looks lost in the woods. Immediately when I saw this image I thought of my favorite childhood movie, Alice in Wonderland, and I created a storyboard going off of that. It was awesome because there is an exact scene in the movie when Alice is lost in the woods and is trying to chase the rabbit. She ends up chasing him into the bunnyhole and spiriling down to Wonderland where she met all the other goofy characters that Wonderland had in store. I transitioned from real life images to cartoon because that’s what ends up happening in the movie that came out, and many people can understand it if they have seen the movie. If someone did not see Alice in Wonderland, they would view this transition as a girl that got lost in the woods with rabbits, and ended up falling down the rabbit hole where she entered a new, imaginary world full of great pleasure and excitement. I would say a lot of these transitions would be subject to subject in this particular storyboard, but there are some moment-to-subject as well.

For my second storyboard I chose to use the image of the man with his hands folded together to start. I used this to tell a story of a man who loves his son so much and doesn’t want to miss his big soccer game for the world, but has to for a big corporate sales meeting at his work in the city. He decides to say a prayer for his son right before he goes into his office meeting, asking for his son to have a good game and a lot of confidence. Then I used the image of the boys lined up in pennies for the third frame, portraying the idea that the boys are lined up waiting for the mains son to shoot the game-winning goal. The final image is a picture of a soccer ball in the back of the net because he scored, leaving audience to think his father would be incredibly proud of him, but unhappy he had to miss it. The majority of transitions in this were moment to moment because it each situation had a big significance.

What was your AHA! moment?
My AHA! moment was when I decided what story I wanted to tell with each of the storyboards. I was so excited to make the Alice in Wonderland graphic because it is something that is a really creative and fun movie to me, and I would like to pass the plot of that story around no matter where I go because it pushes viewers to use their imagination, which is something many people lack in this generation.

What connections did you make to what you have learned in the readings and in class?
This topic of storyboards could connect to Scott McCloud’s book Understanding Comics. He talks about transitions in storyboards including: moment-to-moment, action-to-action, subject-to-subject, scene-to-scene, aspect-to-aspect, and non-sequitur. The transitions I used could have worked better if I chose some different photos to make the events more exciting, especially in the second filmstrip.

What would you do differently had you more time or resources?
If I had had more time I would try to figure out alternative ways that we could tell stories with those particular pictures.

How to Make English Muffin Pizza

What were you trying to achieve?

For this assignment I was trying to achieve my goal of reaching out to children ages 7-12 who cannot speak English, and informing them using pictures and symbols on how to make an English muffin pizza. This is a pretty young age so I had to make sure that they could comprehend everything that was on the instructions properly. Also, I had to keep in mind that I was trying to convey the information in a creative and fun way since they are young so I had to be sure to add colors and fun font to the instructions and title.

What problems did you encountered and how did you solved them?

There were many different problems I had encountered along the way. I am not in the age range of 7-12 and have never made an English muffin pizza in my life so I had to start by doing research on my own. Secondly, the rough draft was bland, didn’t have fun color, and had too many details that it would confuse the reader more than help them to achieve their goal. My second rough draft was a little bit better but I still was angry with myself because I didn’t plan ahead so the formatting was off in many different ways. Finally, I had to change some of my photos to a more simplistic symbol because some people were getting confused. One thing people who saw my drafts was wondering was why there was an apple on a jar, I had to change this so it resembled a tomato instead.

What was your AHA! moment?
My AHA! Moment was on the third draft when I realized that kids do not have the patience to read a lot of details so it was easier to make the instructions short and sweet. I put a key on the top of my final list so they had something to refer to, and also drew arrows to the next step so it was easily followed.

What connections did you make to what you have learned in the readings and in class?
One similarity that I learned in the classroom readings was that there are many different ways to organize thoughts whether it is categorizing things, placing them in charts, graphs, and more so it is important to understand the context of the audience to figure out what will be most suitable for them to read. This will help everyone because the creator will make more profit if more customers are purchasing.

What would you do differently had you more time or resources?
If I had more time and resources I would definitely take the time to figure out other great ways that would make these instruction guides even simpler. I would also take the girl out of the final photo because I don’t want it to be marginalizing and take away from the overall message being conveyed.

Draft 1

Draft 2

Final Draft

Abstract

Concrete