JAMES TRANSTRATEGIES FOR VISUAL RESEARCH

CONTENTS / VIDEO

Discover

DELVE

DEFINE

develop

deliver

Determine

outcomes

Bus Stop: Fenn Street

INCi supermarket

City academy: hackney6 students live on fenn st

Gender ratio at bus stop

avg Ratio of customers per hour

Living on Fenn Street for almost fourteen years made it somewhat difficult to identify a social problem. Everything was within walking distance and my neighbours are wonderful people who have been living on this street longer than I have.

Scoping the street allowed me to develop a different understanding of it, discovering things that I would have never taken notice of on any other day.

I felt that the street itself was extremely mundane, and the most interesting aspect of it were not the physical things but the people that walk through it on a regular basis.

So I used this scoping process to get an idea of the different types of people that use the street on a regular basis.

SCOPING FENN STREET

SHAPE: narrow

Anecdotally: school children

metaphysically: homely

Movement: commuting

As a stranger: comfortable

In order to find a social problem on my street, I spoke to the residents to get their views on it.

I spoke to six residents who have all lived on Fenn Street for over ten years, asking them about any interesting troubles and/or experiences that theyve had whilst living there.

This gave me an insight to the evolution of the street, as major problems became minor as things changed; such as gang violence reducing since they knocked down an all-boys secondary school and reopened it as a mixed academy.

I chose to highlight and categorise the issues into the amount of times each issue was flagged. This helped me narrow down the issues so that I could choose one and research further into.

CONVERSATION CARDS

LACK OFCOMMUNITY

SPIRIT

Parking

LITTERING

LOITERINGUNSAFE ROADS

Community Gang Violence

NO ROAD SIGNS

SCHOOL STUDENTS

INTIMIDATING

NEED A LOLLIPOP MAN

CLUTTEREDSTREET

SCHOOLCHILDREN

LIMITEDSPACES

NO SOCIALIZING

SPACE

GARAGE TOO SMALL

DANGEROUS ESTATE NEARBYLACK OF

BINS

BINMEN NOT CONSISTENT

Minor issues

Major issues

KEY:

MINIMAL PARKING SPACES

lack of community

Gang violence

UNSAFE ROAD CROSSINGS

UNCLEAR ROAD SIGNS

ice-breaker event

encourage positivity*

MORE CROSSINGS

EMPHASISE BY REDESIGN*

exclusive social club*

SOCIAL EVENT(S)

DESIGN NEW CROSSINGS

students LITTERING ENCOURAGE TO RECYCLE RECYCLING SCHEME

CREATE NEW SIGNAGE

Create more spaces new parking system

ISSUES SOLUTIONS FORMAT

ISSUES, SOLUTIONS AND FORMATSI narrowed my findings down to six key issues which the residents felt were the most pressing issues.

I felt that the parking issue was unrealistic and irrelevant since my street is a narrow residential road with limited spaces, and creating more parking spaces would mean it would have to be created in a larger space away from Fenn Street.

I wanted to design for an issue that would be sustainable; which could be maintained even when the street changes and progresses.

The issue I chose (highlighted in red) for further exploration was the issue I felt that had the potential to be the most effective and sustainable.

However, the other key issues are not entirely dismissed, as the red asterisk* represents the aspects I will be drawing from them when designing for my chosen issue.

breakfastcommute

university

STUDY

lunch

STUDYcommute

home

dinner

coursework

SELF-ETHNOGRAPHYBy documenting the routine of myself (a commuting university student that lives at home with my family), I was able to define a target audience, and then set them apart from everyone else.

The self-ethnography reflects a typical routine in an average weekday for me, which mainly consists of commuting and studying.

I only eat out once during the whole day, as eating at home saves money, which is essential to a student.

Since becoming a uni students, my day has mostly consisted of studying followed by commuting.

Size in accordance to time spent:

CULTURAL PROBESTo determine how much litter the students of City Academy were contribuiting to, I asked the shopekeeper to help me with my research, in which he extremely generally agreed to.

Since English wasnt his first language, I made him a user-friendly data card which he could fill out that I could interpret quicker, which proved to help me out a lot.

This data card was made with the idea of matching up the litter on the street, to the items sold at the supermarket in that week to the students at City Academy. It would also help me to separate their amount of litter from non-students.

For the fast food shops, I looked at the packaging which had the brand logo on.

SUGAR SNACKS

80%

DRINKS

100%

PAPER

45%

FAST FOOD

80%

MY FINDINGSShop items

commute

STUDY

lunch

after school fooddinner

home

local Supermarket

STUDY

school

breakfast

homework

A DAY IN THE LIFEAfter creating a self-ethnography graph of myself, I studied the people on my street and chose to create one based on a day in the life of a student that commutes to and studies at City Academy. That student was my brother Calvin.

I created it in the hope that it would differ from my routine in a way that contributes to the issue I intend to solve.

Highlighted in red is the difference between my routine and a student at City Academy.

In the morning, before they get to school, they visit the off-licence shop next door and buy morning snacks and drinks.

They are not able to bring these snacks into school which means they have to be eaten in the time they exit the shop to when they enter the school campus which is no longer than 300m.

Also on most occasions after school, they go to the Carribbean food shop, or the burger bar which are both also right next to the school and buy food.

SUMMARISE THE BRIEF IN ONE SENTENCETO CREATE A SCHEME THAT ENCOURAGES City academy students TO RECYCLE AND REUSE

Possible Format:Apps, books and flyer advertisementsApps for the desktop computers, laptops and tablets that are used by students at school. Advertisement flyers and posters.

City Academy - Hackney & residents of Fenn StreetOne of three academy schools in London. Opened in 2009, City Academy is a mixed school that specialises in financial and business services.

Client:Students of City AcademyAge ranging from 11 - 16 years old, students from all over London. In a world of evolving technology, smart phones and social media may be the best forms of communication.

Audience:

Lack of recycling and reusingResidents of Fenn Street have raised the issue of the school children littering too much. I want to encourage them to recycle and reuse.

Message / Intention:

Designer and instigator, sustainable designI want this scheme to be sustained throughout the whole duration of City Academy being open. Also to provoke some form of encouragement towards recycling and reusing.

Designers role:

BRIEF DEVELOPMENTDeveloping a brief was extremely helpful because I was able to get a clearer idea of my project by identifying the client, audience, message, format and role.

Before I created wrote the brief, I emailed Martin Cunningham, the vice president of Resources at The City Academy to ask him about any existing recycling schemes currently active in the school, in which he replied:

We are currently working with ecoACTIVE to create free workshops for children who want to learn about recycling.

ecoACTIVE is an enviromental charity who teach children about the world and environment using a hands-on and more practical than theory approach.

You can find out more on: http://ecoactive.org.uk/

Thanks,

Martin Cunningham

CREATEENCOURAGE

SOLIDIFYProvo

ke

CompeteBuild

RAISE AwarenessUnifyBreed positivity Build for the future

DETERMINATION

Teamwork TEACH HELP

AIMS AND TARGETSMy audience starts from as young as twelve, which is the time of their lives where learning and developing their minds is at a crucial stage, so I had to be extremely careful with my design and values; by basing them on what I would want my son or daughter to be taught at school.

I took inspiration from evoACTIVE in terms of brand values, but I also wanted it to be designed so it could appeal to an age group that have a five year difference.

I categorised my wordgram into three sections: ACTIONS, VALUES and BELIEFS which are what I want to provoke and encourage to maintain.

action, VALUES and BELIEFS

A v B

they benefit from

role modelsPOSITIVE

and from peers

GoodobserversThey Respond well to

pen-ended?questions

Thr ughPLAY

Young children are

they learN

ResearchersChildren are good

positi ityThey are fueled by

And are encouraged by

SUPPORT

"HOW YOUNG CHILDREN LEARN"Jeanne W. Lepper is a lecturer at Harvard University who spoke about the philosophy of education, specifically young childrens education.

She explains that young children excel and learn much quicker when specific techniques and influences are used to support and guide them.

Young children learn by doing. Helping with cooking, chores, and other real work is of tremendous interest and value to them. This hands-on learning is also encouraged with open-ended materials. The more hands-on experiences children have, the more curious and capable they become and, best of all, the more joy they feel at learning a number of things.

I felt that in order to affect my intended target audience, I needed to find out what motivated them to fulfill their potential and work hard from an early age. I used Leppers philosophy as a foundation for my brand values, as I felt that it would set me in the right direction for defining my project.

TARGET AUDIENCE (CLUSTERING)Through my younger brother Calvin, who is a student of The City Academy, he was able to give his whole form class a questionnaire to fill out in order for me to progress with my project.

The aim was to use whichever aspect(s) was chosen the most as fuel for motivation for the students.

What I found interesting was the fact that competition, reward and encouragement were split even in terms of gender voting.

Females were more inclined to work harder for future prospects, whilst more males said they went to school to make their parents happy.

I felt that this information went hand in hand with Leppers philosophy and kicked started the design of my first outcome.

what motivates you to work hard?Please circle the answer most appropriate to your own thoughts.

REWARDS FUTURE PROSPECTS ENCOURAGEMENTGetting presents and incentives to reflect your hard work and

dedication?

The idea of being successful when you grow up all because you worked hard when you

were younger?

A positive role model(s) in your life guiding you every step of the way, helping you jump the

hardest hurdles in life?

ANY OTHER REASONS: _______________________________________________

40Students

21males

When I see my classmates working hard, it motivates me to work just as hard. Its like each form class is battling against each

other to be the best class in the year. -terry, 15 years old.

I like the feeling of our class finishing school on time, while my friends in the other classes have to stay back to finish their

class work. its quite funny walking past them! - Natalie, 14 years old.19Females

Competition

ENCOURAGEMENT

36Prospects 33PARENTS 30

32Role models 28

35

Rewards

Hobbies

ABOUT

TARGET AUDIENCE (PERSONA)Calvin also mentioned that since he ran out of paper questionnaires, he asked a lot of his friends from other form classes to take a photo of it on their phones and relay the answers to him.

What really surprised me was that they all got back to him via Facebook, Twitter and/or Whatsapp. He then told me that almost everybody in his school use smart phones as a means of socialising, and to check their school timetables, emails and allowance.

This gave me the idea of making an application, as it proved to be the most common and popular form of communication between all the students.

So I went through the majority of his friends on Facebook, asking him about them and categorising it all. And using the data, I created a persona of my intended target audience to generalise all my findings:

parents and one younger sibling

sweet tooth

socialising, sports, games, tv

facebook, twitter, instagram

OUTCOME V1 - IDENTITYCreating a brand and identity proved to be a slow start for me. I found it difficult due to the lack of experience in this particular field of design.

I started off by looking at visual influences that infused simplicity and interesting into their interface design, which had an influence to the usability of their whole framework.

I created quick ideas for a brand logo, incorporating the same simple design aspects as Nokia and Apple did for their icons but also adding an illustrative style to it.

Dr. Russell BestleyCourse Leader - MA Graphic Design

+Relevant idea of usability and simplicity

-Lack of substance, need more

experimenting and development.

=Potential theme of playfulness

+ / - / =

The students

hackney council

Fenn ST. Residents

students parents

Tutors and peers

City academyrecycling companies

STAKEHOLDERS

Creating a stakeholder map allowed me to define the people and organisations that are potentially affected by the project.

The effect will be biggest on the students as the project will be revolved around encouraging and guiding them. They will be the immediate participant of the scheme.

The students parents and The City Academy will be the second most beneficiary as they will reap the benefits of the students positivity and hard work.

Residents of Fenn Street and the borough of Hackney Council will be the next wave of beneficiaries, as they will enjoy a cleaner and more environmentally friendly Fenn Street.

Recycling companies such as The Green Stationary Company will receive all the recycling, and tutors and peers will be involved in the project as advisors towards my design.

P O

KEY:

Arvind Gupta

Barclays Premier League

Timeout London

SOCIAL MEDIA

arvind gupta

Barclays PL

Timeout LDN

social media

CONCURRENT ACTIVITIESI looked for work that may not be directly related to my issue, but each have an aspect or value that I wanted to incorporate into my application. Each photo is hyperlinked to their respective website.

Arvind Gupta is a toy inventor who created educational toys out of recyclable and easily obtained items, which could also be used as learning tools. His project proved to be extremely popular as he introduced a more practical and hands-on way to learn. This is an aspect I intend to include in my app.

The Barclays Premier League brings the competitive side I plan to add into my app. Football teams from all over England play each other in a league that sees the best team get crowned champions of English football over a season of thirty eight games.

Time Out London brings the angle of guidance, by offering readers the chance of going to any area of interests such as theatre, arts, music, sports and eating out by listing them all in one publication that includes both public and professional reviews.

Social media such as Facebook and Twitter has the socialising and community aspect which will keep my audience easily connected at the click of a button.

learning tools

competition

guidance

community

Stability

STRUCTURE

SIMPLICITY

BRAND INFLUENCESRussell mentioned that I needed to do a bit more thinking and develop a more deliberate form in my design, so I took his idea on board and looked into different forms of inspiration as a projection of the applications identity.

I experimented with the simplicity, usability and playful colours of Lego bricks as the theme for the brand, which also gave it a nostalgic feeling as Lego was an essential part of most young childs life growing up.

Tying in with the idea of nostalgia, the spinning tops interested me because it was designed to be precisely balanced only when spun by someone. This reflects the idea of my application being reliant on my audience being spun, a metaphor for them being motivated and rewarded for working hard.

The structure of buildings, specifically the architecture of The City Academy served as the most important aspect of my branding: the foundation of the logos geometric and solid form.

I also looked at existing applications that I felt were successful in creating interfaces for: socialising, leaderboards and statistics: Twitter, Barclays Premier League and ESPN Goals. The clear and concise design was an influence on the applications theme.

leaderboard

social

statistics

Spinning top Lego brick ARCHITECTURE

+ +

theme 1: recycling

theme 2: school emblem

theme 3: school Uniform

OUTCOME V2 - IDENTITYCombining all three aspects of visual influences, I began to experiment with different forms and shapes by creating various different logo ideas.

Drawing inspiration from the simplicity of Nokia and Apples interface, I merged it with the three-dimensional structural aspect of my influences.

*Chosen logo to develop: I chose the logo that I felt incorporated all my influences; but at the same represent solidity, playfulness and simplicity in a comfortable way.

I chose to play on the feeling of nolstagia and familiriaty; the colours I chose to use were already familiar with the students in one way or another.

Christos Kyriacou and Jasmeet LallProblem-based learning group

+Clear and interesting transition from initial objects and influences to logo.Variation between different designs.

- Perhaps too visually confusing for

younger target audience?

=The combination of all three objects of inspiration to create the final logo(s).

The evolution from the first set of outcomes

+ / - / =

*

Raleway light Raleway bold Raleway heavy

Raleway:abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789!@$%^&*()-+=?

Cd Ef 456

OUTCOME V2 - IDENTITYThe name of the project came from being a passionate football fan for over ten years. Everybody I know, met and spoke to about football referred to the Barclays Premier League as the league.

That phrase stuck with me as soon as I heard it, and since then it feels and sounds right to call it that instead of the long-winded Premier League. This gave me the idea of starting every aspect of the application with The.

Choosing fonts for my application was extremely interesting in the sense that I had hundreds and thousands of fonts to choose from.

I wanted to choose a font which was not too harsh on the eyes, but instead compliment the smooth lines of my logo.

A sans-serif font in Raleway had a big variation and a comfortable feel to it, no matter the size, weight or colour.

Raleway Light became my chosen font, as I felt the line weight and form was perfect for the look and feel I was trying to achieve for the application.

THE LEAGUE THE LEAGUE THE LEAGUETHE LEAGUETHE LEAGUE

THE LEAGUE THE LEAGUE THE LEAGUETHE LEAGUETHE LEAGUE

The concept of my application was to encourage the students to recycle and reuse by provoking competition with the prospect of rewards.

I wanted to design something simple and structured, by sticking to a concise framework and choosing a complimentary colour theme for it.

The competitive nature of the application meant that I had to create teams for the students to join and represent. I created five team icons using an isometric grid, taking inspiration from the five elements of nature. The teams are called houses which is a metaphor for the team members being a family.

The navigational buttons for the application had a similar shape as the graphics were created using an isometric grid; this allowed me to keep the framework consistent. The titles for the pages are playing off the title of the application, makintg the whole thing easy to remember and say.

When a student presses one of the buttons, it inverts to white, to let the user know which page of the application they are on. For example, if chosen, The House button would turn white, with all the other buttons remaining red.

OUTCOME V3 - APPLICATION

THE HOUSES THE STATSTHE SOCIAL THE TABLE

HOUSE AIR HOUSE EARTH HOUSE FIRE HOUSE SPACE HOUSE WATER

THE GREEN STATIONERY COMPANYThe league starts for the students as soon as they install the app and choose a team to join. From then on, they have to put all of their litter into their respective House recycling bin which will be in their team rooms.

Objects cannot be taken out, they can only be put into the bin. The only people that have keys to open the bins are the teachers and staff of the school. At the end of every week, the Bins are weight and points are then measured by the weight of litter recycled.

Referring back to Arvind Guptas idea of using litter and recycled items to create learning tools, I looked into recycling charities and companies which could potentially take the litter that I collect and create some form of learning tools to give back to the students.

Hi,

my name is James Tran and I am a third year Graphic Design student, studying at UAL - London College of Communication.

I came across your website whilst doing research for a project I am currently undertaking, and I have to say, I really admire the work you guys are doing over at The Green Stationery Company.

The reason I am emailing you guys is because my project is to create an app that encourages school children to recycle and reuse.

I was wondering if you guys would be up for helping me out with my project? I could provide you guys with materials to create recycled stationery for the students at my local secondary school - The City Acadamy, Hackney.

I have attached the work in progress in PDF format to this email, that should give you a better idea of my project. It would be great if you guys could give me some feedback on my project and hopefully work together!

Thanks and look forward to your reply,

James.

To produce the incentives for the students to recycle, I sought the expertise, craftsmanship and know-how of The Green Stationery Company, who create recycled stationery for businesses and offices.

I sent them an email, explaining my project and attaching a sample of some illustrated stationary branded with The Houses logo on it. I am still waiting for a reply.

The green stationery company

USER JOURNEY MAPPINGCreating a user journey map helped me pinpoint the exact actions at all the different touchpoints during the experience of using the app. Using the map, I was able to place myself into the eyes of the user as well as being the designer.

The application is the core of the project, with only one touchpoint, collect house awards not involving the use of the application.

This meant that I had to make the design of my applications interface connect with my target audience in an appealing way in order for them to stay engaged.

download and install

Get updates via the socialcheck league stats on the app

LOGIN AND CHOOSE TEAM

collect house awards use the green stationarystay on top of the league

recycle into house bins

weigh bins for house points

Christos Kyriacou and Miroslava BobevaFellow design students

+Visually pleasing, everything flows well

together and fits the theme.

-Most of the buttons look too similar, would people be able to tell without

labels?

=The the idea is smart, and the

inspiration from the five elements allowed you to create beautiful team

logos.

+ / - / =

* * *OUTCOME V4 - APPLICATION INTERFACE

The Houses page, which is the home page, shows the badges of all five Houses. Tapping on a Houses badge takes the user into The Element page, which is:

A breakdown of the HouseThe Houses records

Most recycled item everMost recycled item of the week

I kept the simplicity level consistent throughout when designing the application, especially when I designed The Table page. Only the essential information is displayed to prevent cluttering on the page:

The HousesThe position theyre in

The number of items theyve recycledThe conversion into grams

Statistics are made as infographs and are updated every week with figures of:

The most recycled item of the weekThe least recycled item of the week

The House Consistency award

The social page links directly to the Twitter account of The League, which allows Twitter users to read and respond to the latest updates of the app,

*

*

DETERMINE IMPACT - MUSTAFA KAYAI asked Mustafa, a student in his last year at The City Academy to test my interactive PDF prototype and give me his P.M.I.

I gave him a brief outline of the project and showed him the user-journey mapping infograph.

+- Very user-friendly.

- Simple and playful imagery.- Colour scheme is easy on the eye

- Brings out the competitive side in me

-- Buttons are quite small, make it bigger

for older people with bigger hands- What if I dont have the time to keep

up?- What happens once I receive all the

stationery I need?- Need more incentives- It should teach me too

= - Create an advertising campaign for it- The identity of it is really eye-catching- Will you expand the rewards? Maybe

something else after stationery

+ / - / =

design

benefitial

encouraging

motivational

Usability 97

7

88

HOPES AND FEARS / CONCLUSION

Embrace recycling

popular within students

encourages socialising

educates

no-one uses the app

phone theft increase

phone distractions

promotion campaign

create computer app

after school club

lose motivation workshops to inspire

HOPES FEARS SOLUTIONHopes and fears helps me pinpoint the flaws or weak points in my project. By doing this, I am prepared for any unforeseen circumstances and I am able to tweak the project.

Although I am thinking about these factors, I do realise that it is extremely challenging to create an application that is 100% perfect, as user-centered design requires progression and tweaking of the application, as humans also develop and expectations and needs change.

I felt that my project was a topic that was extremely fun and thought

provoking.

It was a breath of fresh air speaking to the residents on my street and the

young students; I appreciated their honesty and enthusiasm for the project.

I extremely enjoyed the branding and identity of the application; it was my first time creating a brand and it exposed me to different thought and

design processes that I intend to use in future projects.

However, I do believe that I need to improve in organising my information in order to condense it better for my PDF.

Overall, I enjoyed the project thoroughly and was proud to work with everyone

that was involved.

With special thanks to Christos Kyriacou

Conclusion

BIBLIOGRAPHYWEBPAGES:

Ink Talks. (2011). Arvind Gupta - TOYMAKER, INNOVATOR, SCIENCE EDUCATOR. Available: http://www.inktalks.com/people/arvind-gupta. Last accessed 19th October 2013.

Lepper, J. (2010). How Young Children Learn. Available: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/bingschool/aboutbing_philosophy_learn.html. Last accessed 26th October 2013.

Barclays. (2004). Premier League Clubs. Available: http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/. Last accessed 26th October 2013.

Time Out London. (2013). Things To Do. Available: http://www.timeout.com/london/things-to-do. Last accessed 26th October 2013.

Maroon 5. (2013). Maroon 5 at the O2. Available: https://www.facebook.com/events/329640620465556/. Last accessed 26th October 2013.

vanessab29. (2013). Brief History of Lego. Available: http://theleaparentsassociation.wordpress.com/category/lego-exhib/. Last accessed 26th October 2013.

Wikipedia. (2013). Top. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top. Last accessed 26th October 2013.

The Green Stationery Company. (2013). About Us. Available: http://www.greenstat.co.uk/storefront/evolution_ContentPage.html?Content=1. Last accessed 26th October 2013.