Professor Colleen Cleveland

Connecting/Synthesizing/Transforming

This month I conducted research to gather qualitative data on the effectiveness of the BoxPark Sushi signage, with the help of Survey Monkey. Based on Jenn & Ken O’Grady’s book A Designer’s Research Manual, I carefully worded the survey questions so as not to lead to a preferred answer. Through email, Facebook and text requests, I gathered 75 responses, though only 40 were viewable in the free version of the app. For the infographic, I chose the results of the 6 questions I thought were the most pertinent in deciding the signs’ effectiveness.

The first step after that was to decide what chart type—number chart, map, pie chart, word cloud or gauge chart—would best communicate each result and then made sketches. According to Chris Pittenturf, the infographic should be, first of all, informative: simply deliver the data pictorially; efficient: save time by telling the story concisely and without ambiguity; appealing: use proper imagery and color palette, bringing boring stats to life; interactive and predictive: allow the user to see alternate results with the click of their mouse.

Linkedin Learning instructor and founder of Killer Infographics Amy Balliett says that infographics are visually driven and should contain little text. Why? 90% of the information relayed to the human brain is visual. Therefore, I tried to relay the survey data as simply and appealingly as possible.

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Problem Solving

In the peer review of the infographic, 2 problems were pointed out. One peer pointed out that the dotted lines in the first draft used to lead viewers through the infographic were not in keeping with the design guide.

The second peer review suggested varying the background colors to provide more viewer engagement. The background color was originally a charcoal gray throughout.

I broke up the background by adding blocks of color from the color palette after reducing the luminosity. The divided background sections and left to right reading direction naturally lead the reader’s eye across and down the infographic after the dotted lines were removed. See first and final drafts below.   

Innovative Thinking

Bar graphs are a very common way to display percentages and comparisons. The Survey Monkey bar graph here displays the result of Question #6: What do the fork, spoon & chopsticks in the logo say to you? Instead of duplicating what they did, I substituted the fork graphic for the bars in the graph. First, I used the graphing tool in Adobe Illustrator to gather the correct heights of the bars based on my research and then replaced them with forks of the same height. The substitution of the forks makes the infographic more engaging to read and innovative. 

Acquiring Competencies

Entrepreneurial skills natural to Designers. I learned that designers naturally possess skills for successful entrepreneurship. We are natural risk-takers and adept at building new things. Why not a business? Occupational, conceptual

Surveys and Questionnaires. Questionnaires are written questions either on paper or online, while surveys are asked directly. Both kinds of research guide design decisions, support a particular direction or inform on a design’s effectiveness. Occupational, conceptual

How design powers Smart Business. More and more, businesses are connecting their success with smart design. The Danish Design Centre’s research showed a 20% growth in revenue for companies that whole-heartedly embrace design as part of their internal process and strategy compared to those that do not. Occupational, conceptual

The purpose of design: To communicate. A design must communicate a message and achieve a result for a client. It cannot simply be aesthetically pleasing, though that matters very much. Occupational, conceptual

Data visualization and information design. More and more, society relies on big data, and big data relies on designers who can translate their results into stories that people can understand. Data needs to be visualized and information designed to communicate simply and in a way that is aesthetically pleasing. Occupational, conceptual

Psychographics in research. Psychographics measures subjective beliefs, opinions, and interests. It quantifies qualitative information about a brand, product or service. Occupational, conceptual

Letting visuals tell the story. Visual communication helps people consume and digest complex analytics. Occupational, conceptual

Three categories of infographics. Data visualization, information design and editorial graphics are 3 ways designers make complex data digestable for general consumption.  Occupational, conceptual

Five rules of designing an infographic.  An infographic should communicate visually, achieve two goals at most, grab attention quickly, contain reliable content and use the same scale throughout. Occupational, conceptual

Risking failure. All designers participate in rapid failure as an integral part of ideation. They come up with ideas to get to the best ones and discard the rest. Occupational, conceptual

Pursuing criticism. Designers critically evaluate themselves constantly, and this ease with critique is a major strength that makes them better listeners, better questioners and public speakers. Occupational, conceptual

Visualizing my abilities. Designers should critically evaluate how their skills stack up and how they add to a company’s bottom line. Understand your value to your clients and charge accordingly. Occupational, conceptual

Week 1 Live Session Notes

Entrepreneurial skills natural to Designers

Designers naturally possess skills for successful entrepreneurship, according to Ken and Jenn Visocky O’Grady in Design Currency. “Design thinking—targeted brainstorming, nonlinear exploration, iterative processes of prototyping and testing, and achievement through rapid failure—can be applied to myriad commercial and social contexts.” They go on to say that “Designers are naturals at building new things, and that can apply to new business ventures too” (2013). Furthermore, designers are adept as risk-taking. IDEO’s David Kelley went so far as to say that design is risk-taking, and as long as you are following your passion you can’t go wrong. Kelley explained how, as a designer, he’d start out with a head full of ideas that had to be organized then acted upon. It takes a leap of faith to get those ideas out of one’s head and openly expose them for the world to judge and critique (2001). 

Surveys and Questionnaires

Surveys are questions asked directly by a researcher to a sampling of a larger population to gather both facts and opinions. Questionnaires, on the other hand, are written down on paper or online for participants to answer on their own. Both are used to gather formative and summative information to help guide design decisions from the outset, support design direction during the process or gain insight into design effectiveness after production (O’Grady & O’Grady, 2017). Kathryn Whitenton of the Nielson Norman Group asserts that “When organizations have a lot to gain from effective branding, aesthetic choices and their impact on users’ attitudes should be assessed through a rigorous, data-driven approach.” This approach should include 1). Exposing the test participants to the visuals in question, and 2). Assessing user reactions through either open-ended or strictly controlled questions. She offers that questions of aesthetics and brand impressions can also be assessed remotely and without a moderator, for test participants who cannot meet in person (Whitenton, 2018).

How design powers Smart Business

The Danish Design Centre calls design strategy a “powerful economic engine”. Their research of hundreds of businesses showed that those corporations that embraced design as strategy and part of their operational process showed a 20% growth in revenue compared to those that did not (O’Grady & O’Grady, 2013). However, Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, and Roger Martin, former dean of the Rotman School of Management, point out that design-led strategy isn’t easy. Many businesses resist this new innovation as (surprise, surprise) disruptive to business as usual. Brown and Martin’s solution is something called “innovation design” which is “to treat the launch of a disrupter as a design challenge in itself” (Ignatius, 2015). 

References

Ignatius, A. (2015, August 11). Design as strategy. Harvard Business Review, September 2015 issue. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2015/09/design-as-strategy

Kelley, D. (2001, October 3). Design is risk-taking. Retrieved from https://ecorner.stanford.edu/videos/design-is-risk-taking/

O’Grady, J. V., & O’Grady, K. V. (2013). Design currency: understand, define and promote the value of your design work. San Francisco, CA: New Riders.

O’Grady, J. V., & O’Grady, K. V. (2017). A designer’s research manual: succeed in design by knowing your clients understanding what they really need. Beverly, MA: Rockport, an imprint of The Quarto Group.

Whitenton, K. (2018, June 17). How to test visual design. Retrieved from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/testing-visual-design/

Week 2 Live Session Notes

The purpose of design: To communicate 

Making pretty designs alone is not the job of a media designer. At the end of the day, their job is to communicate a message and achieve a specific outcome for the client. Good looks are important, but they alone won’t tell the designer if they have succeeded, according to Rebecca Creger of 99designs.com. Her checklist for quality design asks: 1. Does the design fulfill its purpose? 2. Is the message easy to understand? 3. Is it aesthetically pleasing? 4. Is the style appropriate for your audience? 5. Is the design original? As Ken and Jennifer O’Grady suggest (2013), Creger blends hard and soft values in determining whether a design has met its mark (2019). For instance, “fulfilling its purpose” may mean accruing a certain amount in donations or sales. Or it could mean achieving a soft value like increasing brand awareness or fostering trust. Regardless of the value achieved, design must first and foremost communicate.

Data visualization and information design

Increasingly in our data-driven culture, designers are called upon to translate dry stats into stories that people can grasp (O’Grady, 2013). In accomplishing this week’s survey assignment, that fact became quite apparent. Survey Monkey’s visual depiction of the respondents who thought the colors of the restaurant signs were fun, youthful and friendly or achieved their purpose made the stats more compelling. By comparison, findings in a 2019 study on the effects of color, typography and graphics-vs-photography on chocolate bar packaging (Kovač, 2019) could have benefited greatly from data visualization. There are pictures of the prototypical chocolate packaging shown respondents. However, the yawning lack of data visuals in this study shows how accustomed the public (myself included) has become to information design and how it’s almost offensive when it is absent.

Psychographics in this week’s research 

“Psychographics is a quantitative tactic used to measure subjective beliefs, opinions, and interests. In other words, it is a quantitative tool for measuring qualitative information,” according to Ken and Jennifer O’Grady in A Designer’s Research Manual (2017). Research on the effectiveness of the signs designed for BoxPark Sushi falls into the category of psychographic research as it is thoroughly opinion-based. The survey contains questions like “How would you describe the colors?” and “Would the signs entice you to try BoxPark Sushi?” This was before reading AIGA’s Golden Rules of Market Research: 1. Focus on testing communication effectiveness vs. design appeal. Market Research should be about perceptions, not preferences. 2. When testing, make allowances for familiarity. The thinking is that we humans are frightened by change. 3. Market research is an art, not a science. Avoid numerical imperatives and focus instead on emotional connections and design sensibilities. 4. Focus on what consumers like about the brand or product first. Then ask them what the design is communicating. 5. More is definitely merrier. Do not test designs in isolation, but rather alongside other designs or the competition. 6. Never ask consumers how they would improve a design. You want their reactions, not their solutions (Millman, 2008). After all that, AIGA stresses that there is no one correct way to test design.

References

Creger, R. (2019, December 10). How to evaluate the quality of your design. Retrieved from https://99designs.com/blog/tips/evaluate-design-quality

Kovač, A., Kovačević, D., Bota, J., & Brozović, M. (2019). Consumers’ preferences for visual elements on chocolate packaging. Journal of Graphic Engineering & Design (JGED), 10(1), 13–18. Retrieved from https://doi-org.oclc.fullsail.edu/10.24867/JGED-2019-1-013

Millman, D., & Bainbridge, M. (2008, February 22). Design meets research. AIGA. Retrieved from https://www.aiga.org/design-meets-research

OGrady, J. V., & OGrady, K. V. (2013). Design currency: Understand, define and promote the value of your design work. San Francisco, CA: New Riders.

O’Grady, J. V., & O’Grady, K. V. (2017). A designer’s research manual: succeed in design by knowing your clients understanding what they really need. Beverly, MA: Rockport, an imprint of The Quarto Group.

Week 3 Live Session Notes

Letting visuals tell the story 

Even the best data is useless if no one can see and readily understand its value. Data visualization or visual communication is the means by which people can consume and digest complex analytics (Radich, 2017). For that reason, data visualization has become an indispensable part of business and also day-to-day life. It must be, first of all, informative: simply deliver the data pictorially; efficient: save time by telling the story concisely and without ambiguity; appealing: use proper imagery and color palette, bringing boring stats to life; interactive and predictive: allow the user to see alternate results with the click of their mouse (Pittenturf, n.d.).

Three categories of infographics

Data visualization, information design and editorial graphics are 3 ways designers can make mega-impact with Big Data (Ritchie, n.d.). The “artistic science” of data visualization makes sense of numbers and easily shares the story they tell. Information design infographics, unlike data visualization, does not use specific data, but rather concepts and information such as process, anatomy, chronology or hierarchy. Finally, editorial infographics have become widely used by publications of late because they engage readers and are highly shareable on social media. “This adoption has also spread into the commercial sector, with many start-ups and larger corporate blogs using graphic content or ‘charticles’ to display thought-leadership within an industry and bring attention to their site” (Ritchie, n.d.). For designers who want to get into this quickly growing sector of infographics, Linkedin instructor Amy Balliett shares great insights including how easily the graph and pie chart tools in Adobe Illustrator convert complex information and stats into visually appealing infographics (Balliett, 2015).

Five rules of designing an infographic 

Amy Balliett, CEO and co-founder of Killer Infographics, shares these 5 musts for designers: 1. Always think about con-text. “It’s a con if there’s too much text.” Infographics should be visually driven rather than text-driven. Sandra Durcevic of Datapine.com agrees, informing readers that 90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual. She says that, because of the way the brain processes information, visualizing large amounts of data in charts or graphs is more accessible than relying on text methods (2018).  2. Prioritize your goals (2 at most). Trying to accomplish too much dilutes the power of the piece. Concentrate on 2 goals at most. 3. People care less than goldfish. Balliett teaches that the average person’s attention span is 5 seconds compared to a goldfish’s (12). Your infographic has just an instant to hook the viewer and persuade them to go deeper. According to Durcevic, even business meetings could be shortened by 24% if we all used infographics. 4. Good content is 50% of a successful infographic. Be sure to include good qualitative data that can be linked to reputable sources. Otherwise, you may be allowing great graphics to tell a skewed story. 5. Use correct data visualization throughout. Keep the same scale. Don’t force the viewer to adjust from percentages to “3 out of 4”, for instance. Also, keep similar dimensions in the pie charts, graphs, etc. (Balliett, 2015).

References

Balliett, A. (2015, October 28). Learning infographic design. Linkedin Learning.

Durcevic, S. (2018, October 5). 10 essential data visualization techniques, concepts & methods to improve your business—fast. Retrieved from https://www.datapine.com/blog/data-visualization-techniques-concepts-and-methods/

Pittenturf, C. (n.d.). What is data visualization and why is it important? Retrieved from https://data-visualization.cioreview.com/cxoinsight/what-is-data-visualization-and-why-is-it-important-nid-11806-cid-163.html

Radich, R. (2017, May 8). Big data for humans: the importance of data visualization. Retrieved from https://dataconomy.com/2017/05/big-data-data-visualization/

Ritchie, J. (n.d.). What is an infographic? What they are and why they’re useful. Retrieved from https://www.columnfivemedia.com/infographic

Week 4 Live Session Notes

Risking failure

It’s a natural human instinct to avoid failure like the plague. Not only do we avoid it but, when it happens we try to hide it, lest anyone find out and connect the failure to us (as if learning to walk wasn’t predicated by falling). Ironically, Jenn and Ken O’Grady present “rapid failure” as a very natural and necessary part of the creative process (O’Grady, 2013). There’s no getting around it. Creatives want to get all the commonplace ideas out quickly so they can move on to the extraordinary. That’s what’s meant by rapid failure. While I know of this process intuitively, I had never heard of rejected ideas referred to as failures to be embraced as a necessary—even healthy—eventuality. “Most creatives are so used to taking risks that they don’t even think about failure anymore.” according to cmo.adobe.com. “They expect it because, in truth, 99% of ideas are simply failed experimentations on the path to that 1% breakthrough,” (Schwarz, n.d.). The blog goes on to note the marketing failure of the Nike fitness tracker and the hundred-million-dollar rocket failures of entrepreneur Elon Musk—both ideas which none-the-less push their respective industries forward. Companies like Nike and SpaceX take risks on a huge scale. Musk, for one, clearly sees his mistakes as “knowledge generators”. Maybe all designers should take that view. The point is that true innovation doesn’t come without a heaping helping of risk—and his cousin, failure. 

Pursuing criticism

One of the reasons I chose to pursue my Masters was to get constructive critique from professionals who have worked in the industry—a concept which, I came to learn, is baffling to most people. After all, who in their right mind pursues criticism? The O’Grady’s understand this drive. It’s what they call being indoctrinated in a “culture of critical self-evaluation”. They judge this ease with critique as a major strength. It makes designers better listeners, better questioners and better public speakers (O’Grady, 2013). Along the road toward better critiques, AIGA (the professional association for design) reminds those in the design industry to give critique as a “love” sandwich with the bread being what we love about the work and the fillings, the things we loved less. They also remind us that anyone, even a non-designer friend or coworker whom we trust to give good feedback, can be a good resource for those of us starved for critique (Lawless, K., & Crabill, S., n.d.).

Visualizing my abilities

The O’Grady’s encourage designers—probably most of whom, like me, shun the business side of things—to evaluate how their skills stack up. “Don’t define professional ability solely by creative acumen. There’s a whole list of other traits that make you an attractive hire or business partner” (O’Grady, 2013). They encourage designers to promote their value and “bottom-line impact”, a language likely prospects understand. Beyond a primary skill set of technical proficiency, aesthetic abilities and production knowledge, they suggest a secondary skill set comprised of organizational and systems thinking, comprehensive communication, responsiveness to criticism, comfort with risk, lifelong learning and project management. Designer and entrepreneur Lara Lee concurs that businesses are more confident in their economic need for good design and the designers who will deliver it. To that end, she offers designers tips on how to quantify their value and accomplishments on a resume. “Brainstorm success stories and incorporate your answers into your results-oriented resume, client pitches, and other achievement statements,” she says. Include both hard and soft values, accomplishments that are both quantifiable and immeasurable (Lee, 2017). Robert Half also offers great resume tips for designers, worth reviewing. One such tip is “Dare to design.” Your resume is a key marketing tool to give prospective clients/employers a first look at your personal style, and cohesive branding matters (Half, 2019).

References

Half, R. (2019, June 21). The ultimate graphic designer resume tip sheet. Retrieved from https://www.roberthalf.com/blog/writing-a-resume/the-ultimate-graphic-design-resume-tip-sheet

Lawless, K., & Crabill, S. (n.d.). How to give and receive a good design critique. Retrieved from https://www.aiga.org/how-to-give-receive-design-critique

Lee, L. (2017, August 10). 52 ways to write crative achievement statements: how to measure the unmeasurable to write creative achievement statements for design resumes & case studies. Retrieved from https://www.laralee.design/52-ways-to-quantify-success/

O’Grady, J. V., & O’Grady, K. V. (2013). Design currency: understand, define and promote the value of your design work. San Francisco, CA: New Riders.

Schwarz, D. (n.d.). Why creatives embrace failure—and why you should, too. Retrieved from https://cmo.adobe.com/articles/2017/7/building-blocks-for-creative-innovation-taking-risks-and-expecting-failures.html#gs.18luqb