The Social in the Visual

A few weeks back I was lucky enough to be asked over to beautiful New Zealand to run a workshop on wayfinding. A big thanks to Dr Mick Abbott for the invitation. I’m no expert in this area, but I’ve never let that stop me before! In design terms a lack of expertise can be used as an opportunity to ask dumb questions (always a good starting point) and to examine all assumptions about a design problem. In this case, how can a system be designed for a remote part of New Zealand that questions previous assumptions about wayfinding? Students in the Master of Design program at Otago University’s Design Studies Department pondered this question for a week following a trip to Arthur’s Pass to experience the impressive location for themselves. This question was complicated by further considerations of local identity: how do you create a wayfinding system that means something to locals and in terms of the local environment?In addition, the students each had a response that took the new Dept. of Conservation (DOC) motto into account: Protect, Enjoy, Be involved. How do you create a system that lures whistle-stop tourists out of the bus to enjoy the local sites, sounds and smells, while also catering to the more seasoned hiker? My undersatanding of wayfinding is that it’s not just about signage. In fact, signage can be a symptom that the marking of the way for travelers has somehow broken down. Paths and landmarks should tell us the way as much, if not more than graphics imposed upon a landscape; especially one as beautiful as New Zealand’s. To get the students to drop their assumptions about visual signage, they were blindfolded one by one and asked to navigate their way around their own university campus. This activity caused them to begin to rely on their senses other than sight. They soon began to sense when the ground was inclining, what kind of surface was under their shoes—grass, gravel, road, brick paving—but also to navigate using sound by keeping road and river sounds to one side or the other. Students reported a difficulty in depth and distance perception while blindfolded. They had a sense of where they were on campus but not how far along a path they were at any time. Blindfolding then throws new light on the sense of sight as a depth-finding sense, rather than a sense for merely regarding objects. This realisation informed many of the projects that followed. Back in the studio, students responded to prompts about their visit to Arthur’s Pass as well as examining unusual ways of creating landmarks and measuring and identifying landscape. I hope we can post some of these student projects soon.

BP’s green branding is being questioned more than ever in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. We can’t help questioning its smaller scale operations closer to home. Has anyone noticed how their bowsers seem to follow no logical progression in the placement of petrol pumps? Some bowsers start with the highest octane fuel at the left and the lowest at the right. One might assume a more logical progression would be to increase octane as you read left to right. The bowser pictured is less logical still. It shows the highest octane in the middle. Shouldn’t customers be allowed to assume that from one BP station to the next the set up at the bowser should be the same? After all, the company, like all oil companies, certainly has gone to great lengths to create station architecture that looks the same from one country to another. Others have noticed the questionable tactics going on at the bowser. Are BP catching people out, a few extra cents at a time, allowing them to pay for a higher octane fuel than they thought they were getting? We’d be interested in your thoughts on this.

These pics were taken at Warwick Station in Perth. The helpful machine speaks to tell you when the next train is coming. BUT the information for the train to Perth is on the FROM PERTH side of the platform. The information for the trains from Perth is on the TO PERTH side. Transperth, please, this is not rocket science, please fix this. At Figures we are of the belief that directional signage of any form is often a symptom that more fundamental aspects of wayfinding (unique landmarks, clear pathways, etc.) are not working as well as they should. When the signage is done the wrong way round like this, it exacerbates this symptom. It’s almost as if Dick Dastardly himself has flipped the signage to foil the other contestants in the race.

Data Underload posts can be found on Nathan Yau’s Flowing Data blog, which is a must see. This design is one of his I believe. When not making his own engaging pieces, he certainly has an eye for others’ entertaining infographics. We’re very keen on these kinds of nonsense infographics just because of what they can tell us about engaging and entertaining while (mis)informing. Our raison d’etre is accessibility you may recall. The link, Data Underload , was sent to us courtesy of Andy Simionato of Thisisamagazine fame, whose acquaintance I am very pleased to have made recently. Keep ‘em coming, Andy. hopefully, we can coax Andy to work with us on some of our experiments.
Testing … testing … Are we back on air? The title of this post does two jobs. We’re also back after a long hiatus during which we’ve each been flat out on our own projects but have been underloading the data on Figures. Uriah and myself are determined to continue Figures and will shortly relaunch it in Uriah’s fab new livery. Hopefully, we’ll be joined by Scott Savage our colleague in Dunedin, NZ who shares our interests in this field. Anyway, we promise to start the posts back up and prompt you, dear reader, for your valued feedback.

We’re very pleased at to see a couple of our information graphics (this, solar power diagram and the World Languages graphic) included in Connie Malamed’s excellent design textbook, Visual Language for Designers published by Rockport. Our experiments between the cardinal points of accuracy and accessibility appear to be working according to Connie. She described our work as using the right amount of detail to depict the visual metaphors employed, but not enough to distract or overwhelm the viewer from the statistics.

Take a quick moment to ponder these two designs. What kind of words would you use to describe each one? Is one more appealing than the other? If so, why? Does one seem more or less likely to work? If you had to choose between these two packages based on their visual design, which would you reach for at the chemist’s?

Growth Chart — Information design by Amy Tranthem. Based on parent’s profession as a paediatric nurse, this graphic charts the students influences against particular heights during her life.

Recent work in the field of information design shows that the form itself and just what it’s for is completely open to interpretation. These diagrams might communicate in particular ways (Figures is really here to try and understand what those are) but the content it communicates seems to be open to anything. Information design is a medium like movies or comics through which any story can be explained. The Feltron Annual Reports are a case in point. The popularity of these, and other, more arts-based attempts at personal information design such as Simon Patterson’s Great Bear got us thinking about teaching information design to first year designers.

In this assignment, students are asked to map out a dozen influences upon their own lives. The ‘map’ itself is derived from the kinds of information design one of their parents (presumeably a major influence) uses in their daily activities. For example, if a child’s parent is a nuclear physicist, the student may use the periodic table of elements as a basis for their information design. At first glance the design will look like the periodic table. Closer inspection will reveal different content than what is expected. So far, all students have found something to engage with. Often, where students have initially been dubious about the project because their dad is ‘just a clerk’ or ‘in insurance’ the results have brought the best feedback from the class. A big surprise is the potential for humour within this assignment.

Why does this assignment work at such an early stage in design studies? Students new to university can have a distrust of theory, design students in particular are often raring to go only to make pretty things. The trick with this assignment was to nurture that urge but channel it through some research. Our students are not familiar with the concept of research and can shy from it when it is labelled as such. This assignment is a way of sneaking design research under the radar of the student: A way to get students to research from the beginnings of their course without them knowing they are doing it. Importantly it seeks to give them confidence by focusing on their area of expertise: themselves. It charts influences only each individual student knows. It’s a chance to talk about themselves and it breaks the ice in the class early in the study year. It also builds confidence about the idea of research.

At Risk– Information design by Casey Chatman. Based on a parent’s profession in risk assessment this design graphs declining influences of family members and growing influence of personal relationships as the student starts university.

Students are shown that design comes from many quarters and is not just conjured by designers. Design is in fact too important to leave in the hands of designers. Design should always be the result of some research. What is important is to get students to articulate that research not solely through the design, but through writing and presentation. Having them start this process through something they are already experts in gives them confidence from the get go in this complex and often daunting process. It is a positive way forward into a career founded on research and communicative articulation.

Explosives & Dangerous goods– Information design by Olivia Nicolson. Based on parent’s profession in industrial gases, this graphic charts the students influences against particular heights during her life.

Dunedin, NZ — illustration by Jessie McKay and Gillian McCarthy

As a first contribution to Figures, it seems fitting to kick-off with looking at a recent project I ran with my second year Design Studies students. It addressed directly the potential value and possibilities in utlilising an infographic visual language in narrative-based communication. The project entitled, Duninfo, involved creating one information graphic which communicated facts, data and information about the Dunedin environment [but relative to a given topic]. All the information was to be gathered first hand via observation, surveys and so on. The impetus of the design was to tell or reveal a story about Dunedin, as well as structuring it to cater for multiple layers of information. Dunedin, for those who are unaware, is a modestly sized city near the bottom of the South Island of New Zealand. It has a large and rowdy tertiary student population which leaves town when the academic year ends and the weather heats up.

To kick the project off, the class was assembled into groups of three or four [based on information provided via filling out initially a job application form]. The aim of this exercise was to form balanced groups in terms of not only skill set but also interest. Once the groups were formed, they chose topics via a lottery from a set list [each group with a different focus, 16 groups in total]. The following topics were offered [those in red are the ones that were chosen]:

During the length of the project, groups were asked to submit their designs twice [in addition to weekly critique]. For the first submission, groups had to have ready a full draft, with all the necessary elements included, and a basic design form established. This submission revealed some quite interesting and particularly concerning issues about assumptions that are made of audiences. Through, at times, a lack of necessary information some of the designs were unfortunately completely ambiguous. Simple things like missing titles, a statement of intent, a legend / key, labeling and necessary annotations, it really did hinder the success and value of the design. It appeared that the ‘less is more’ premise, in terms of information design often doesn’t apply when serving to a seamless clarity and understanding.

Other concerns also surfaced as how can simple visual relationships be made to inform or add interest and wit to data? Can the language and phrasing which supplement the design effect its value? What impetus does colour coding, shape, pattern and difference have? And finally does the employment of typographic and pictorial hierarchy enhance the reading and sequence of the design? Identifying these concerns, at this stage in the process certainly helped groups refocus the intention and clarity of the designs. This was important too because the final designs were to be presented as A1 format. The effect of a larger scale especially seems to highlight glaring ambiguities and mistakes.

In the end, the final submission and body of designs by the groups were highly successful, with lots of wonderful observations and visual innovations made. This was especially rewarding, taking into account the very short timeframe and limited technical and conceptual thinking experience of most students coming to the project. With each groups focus being unique, every design, graphically and structurally, were quite markedly different and the interpretation of the initial words ranged from quite literal to strangely tangental and loose. Below are three examples from the project, each with starkly different visual approaches [you can click on them to view bigger in a new window]

Here is the original brief for the project: Duninfo Project Brief pdf [124kb]

- Scott Savage

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Scott is a Professional Practice Fellow, teaching Communication Design and Visualization at the department of Design Studies [University of Otago, New Zealand].

Project tutors: Tracey Gardner, Sian O’Gorman and Scott Savage

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DRINKFO by Claire Hinton, Michael Eyles and Jamie Metzger
[The migration patterns of Drunk University of Otago students, over a nine hour period]

Shoes . . . the window to the sole? by Gillian McCarthy, Jessie McKay and Chis Ong
[a survey of shoe types, colours and condition from six different areas in Dunedin]

Love by Josie Brough, Makiko Chiba and Andrew Jacombs.
[a flow chart of University of Otago students on love, sex and relationships]

Figures: the social in the visual has reached 1! Given that we have reached 1, we thought it was a good time to discuss making some changes to our website. The main reason for this is that we want to become more transparent to our readers. In changing the website, we aim to change the role of the user and change the role of the writer to enhance interactivity. So one thing we are planning to do is, rather than you having to post your names, we propose that the system automatically generates a number, e.g., “reader 1, 2 etc.”. We have had some feedback that writing a comment can be rather intimidating, so we hope that this will create a level of anonymity for you.

We also want to make the visuals more dominant, we are the social in the visual after all! So we are considering that the first page of the site is a list of the visuals with the associated headings without the contextual statement. We are hoping that by focusing on the visuals it will help us in constructing our aesthetic. There will still be the opportunity to post, and we will still keep tags, but we are planning to categorise the information via the outputs. This we hope, will provide a different way of building links with potentially diverse content.

We think that it is about time that we have a “Contact Us” section for you to email any suggestions on the content or future content, or anything that you want to really. Regarding Figures content, we are considering focusing on one major project for a dedicated time, allowing us to work towards a number of outputs: the website, public projection work (see our recent post “Swine Flu”), locative media work (see the post “Locative Infodesign”), booklets / prited material (see “Figures 001: Explosion Over The Horizon”) and many other possibilities. In conjunction to this, we will have a series of sub-projects on the go at anytime, so please keep having a look. We plan to submit new postings at the end of each month, keeping you up to date with our stuff! And, we also want to include questions for you, so we can develop converstaions. So please let us know what you think regarding our birthday makeover plans.

… And here is the video in situ at the Spectrum Gallery. We would love your thoughts on the animations, the difference between the two aesthetics and anything else you notice about these latest Figures works.