Final Project

For our visual, we created an affinity map. Often, an affinity map is used when brainstorming. Items are placed on four axes. For our project, we created an affinity map that organized the assignments we have had in Introduction to Visual Communications. We included the “How-To: Spaghetti Dinner,” Geographical Map, Collage, Mind Map, Concept Map, Flow Chart, Multivariate, Simple Graphs and Charts, and the Lawn Care assignment. It is our experience that these sketches allowed students to implement visual concepts learned in class.

On one axis, there was Imaginative on one side and Confining on the other. On the other axis, the labels were Hard to Easy. Our group chose where each assignment would go. It is important that we explain our definitions for the labels we chose. We understand Imaginative for this set-up as meaning “allowing creativity.” Assignments toward this end tended to be more original. They often included an artistic element. Confining for this project is understood as “having rigid rules and structure.” The assignments placed closer to this label tended to give students less ability to go off on their own ideas. The label “Hard” refers to the amount of work and the level of ability required by the student to complete the task. We considered the length of time needed to complete the assignment and the complicity of the sketch’s rules when placing our items on Hard and Easy axis.

After much deliberation and discussion, our group was able to decide where to place our sketch items. It is acknowledged that a different group of students may have placed their sketches on different places throughout the affinity map. This is what makes this project especially unique. The actual sketches were our group members’ best sketches picked by the four of us.

After taking this class, it is impossible to ignore visual decisions when creating a poster. On our poster, we used different colors to represent each of the four quadrants. This tends to lessen the cognitive load because viewers can observe the items in one quadrant as being “together” or “similar.” As they start to see these items of the same color as part of a group, the Gestalt principle of proximity occurs. This means that when items are closer together, they are considered part of a whole. Also, our group wanted to fill in space on the poster by adding principles we have learned in class. However, we decided against this. Executing Occam’s Razor, defined as “The principle that one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything,” we decided that the visual impact of just the sketches on the graph produced the desired result. 

            Before creating our visual we had also agreed upon a targeted audience. Given the nature of our visualization we decided that the perfect target audience would be a college freshman student indecisive about enrolling in this class. As typical college students we acknowledged that important factors that play a role in our picking of classes are its content, difficulty (although it shouldn’t), workload, and experience. Our visualization thus provides the uncertain student a preview of the material, examples of the types and number of assignments, and most importantly how difficult or easy those assignments are. 

My personal experience working with my group was a very positive one. It was a trial and error process as we first wanted to do a flow chart. We soon realized however that a flow chart would be extensive and wouldn't be the best representation of the information we wanted to express. I then suggested we do an affinity map. We all agreed that it would be a great idea 1) because it would concisely and accurately represent our information 2) because it's different and many people would shy away from making one. The end result was concise, clear, and accurate visual that displays the information in a in-ambiguous manner. Our visual may seem like it lacked extensive effort, however a lot of our effort was used to draft up the final visual. We had a flow chart that we had to scrap and start over.  

Multivariate Display

So the information I wanted to represent was immigration trends in the U.S. from 1960-2000. Via http://www.migrationinformation.org/datahub/ I was able to obtain yearly immigration numbers from 1960-2000 and I was also allowed access to pie charts that broke down the proportional make up of those immigrants by nation of origin.

At first I had planned on making a line graph, my x-axis would be the year, the y-axis would be the total number of immigrants, and the points on the graph would be marked by pie charts that would illustrate the make up of those immigrants. I attempted this, and soon realized that my pie charts would be too small and thus insignificant.

After taking a look at the Napoleanic multivariate graph I was inspired towards a new solution. I decided to create stacked bar graphs that would illustrate the proportional make up of the immigrants, and the time frame, and then highlighted over the bar graph I made a line graph that showed trends in total number of immigrants. This was my grand aha moment and I was very pleased with the result.

I acknowledge that the large amount of countries displayed may be overwhelming to all dissect, however, I also believe that significance and attention should be drawn to the patterns portrayed by those countries who's numbers are numerically significant, such as Mexico, Canada, and the UK. Attention should also be drawn to the increasing amount of immigrants found under "all other countries". Furthermore, the emergence of new countries should also tell a tale as more recently a majority of the amount of immigrants come from Southeast Asia and Latin America.

Storyboard

I decided to begin with the required one pic storyboard and construct a central theme from the energy and emotion in the picture. I decided to choose the one with the four men walking in what appears to be a sand storm.

I do have a penchant for writing poetry and decided to make the narration for this picture abstract and reflective. Thus I made the required picture the beginning and built upon the central theme of what I abstracted was hope with associative photos I found on google.

I went with the theme of barren landscape and the hope for a brighter better future. It's almost synonymous with the plight of immigrants.
I used the transition of scene to scene a lot in this example.

For the second storyboard I chose the picture of the children playing soccer and of the little girl peeking through some bushes. I decided to make this one a little more light-hearted and focused on subject to subject transitions with the use of 1st person diaglouge.

I built around the central theme of gender identification in a typical suburban setting. The mom is angry at the daughter for wanting to play a sport, while simultaneously feeling proud of her son who participates in the sport.

Simple Tables to Graphs

I began this assignment by roaming the RWU website for statistical data. I found the different costs of all the residence halls and decided that the information would translate nicely to chart and graph representations. The residence halls are polarized around suite style living arrangements and apartment style living arrangements. These arrangements are then subdivided into denominations of how many people live with you.

I began by jotting down my independent and dependent variables (residence hall and prices respectively). I then attempted to make a table on excel. Given my computer illiteracy and impatience I gave that up shortly to make it on powerpoint. Creating this simple table on powerpoint was actually very easy and smooth. The table I feel is simple, accurate, and efficient.

I then used this data on the table to make my bar graph. Using varying colors to represent the different types of living arrangements, one can easily compare prices. Again I used powerpoint to create this bar graph and when doing so it automatically opened up excel and through trial and error I was able to figure out how to configure it.

In conclusion, I realized that using a table to represent data made it easier to identify variables and thus reduces the cognitive load. Creating a visual representation makes it even easier since disparities become apparent and thus reduces further the cognitive load. The information on the RWU website is difficult to compare and thus I would recommend a set up such as the ones above to make it easier to comprehend.

Flow Charts

I kept once principle in mind while creating these flow charts; use the simplest symbols possible. Keeping this in mind I set out to create these flow charts and was determined to keep them concise but still entailing of vital information. I tried to do the flow chart on excel, however my lack of computer competence obstructed my efforts.

On the first flow chart (buying book on amazon), I actually went through and did the process to familiarize myself with it. After going through and actually coming to crossroads I decided to jot down on a piece a notebook paper exactly what I did. I did it once as a returning customer and a second time as a new customer ( I actually had to create a new gmail account to attain this experience). After establishing comfort with the process I started the flow chart. I tried to use as much as the paper as possible and to make it symmetric. Unfortunately I ended up with a blank space in the upper right corner that I wish I had used. The flow of the chart is actually easy to read however, and I did find escapes for the loops that stemmed from decisions. I only used a diamond when I came across a diamondesque situation when going through the process myself.

Again, on the second flow chart I used the exact same approach. I went through and actually tried the process myself to familiarize myself with it. I jotted down my steps, and again while simultaneously keeping in mind to use the simplest symbols possible, I created this. A flow chart with no diamond, I hope its still a flow chart. The reason I drew it out as so was because this process worked successfully for me while running a search. Thus, I excluded the usage of a question.

Visual Essay

So as I sat back and pondered about what in the world I would tackle for this assignment, I focused on attempting to improve a visual that shows "how something works". However, I did not want to settle on anything generic such as the process of photosynthesis or how to tie a tie. I was thinking about life cycles, and then I recalled watching a show on animal planet that discussed the incredible and complex life cycle of a parasite.

After much googling I found the parasite that I had been looking for. Its name is Dicrocoelium dendriticum. After familiarizing myself with its life cycle I then searched for a visual representation of its life cycle. I found quite a few, but noticed that some were either too simple, and others were too complex to quickly decipher. Thus and aha moment, and I soon found my subject for this assignment.

I chose the visual that I found particularly hard to decipher since there was a lack of wording and a flip flopping between drawn and photographed material.

Thus in my example I sought to address those two problem areas of the original. I decided to stick to cartoon representations accompanied by brief explanations of what the cycle entails of. The audience I targeted with its construction are children of middle school age. The reason I chose to do this was because I recall as a child looking at scientific visuals and finding them difficult to understand at first glance due to its complexity.

spaghetti dinner

When drawing this out I decided to use the universal languages of math, science and numbers to convey a chronological sequence. I tried to be as vivid as possible with my drawings to make the process an easy one to understand.

The further I went, the more I realized that perhaps I had made the process too elaborate. I should have made the process more concise and short enough to be on one page.I realized that I am a very organized and straightforward thinker (which means I use the left (?) side of my brain).

I also realized that my crayons don't have that "in your face" factor :( I should probably make the move towards markers or something bolder.