Information Design - FLIP Classroom
Week 1 - Week 7 / 04.01.2022 - 19.02.2022
Tow Wan Tian / 0343765
W1 / 06.01.2022
Topic 1 - Types of Infographics
Group Task
During the second lecture of Week 1, Ms Anis introduced us to the FLIP
classroom and the first research topic. For our first FLIP presentation,
all groups should conduct research on the same topic: types of
infographics, and present our findings in the form of a YouTube video
presentation.
On 7 January, our group held a meeting to discuss the exercise and delegate some of the work to the members. Each member was responsible for finding relevant information and presenting two of the twelve types of infographics. A day after, we met again on Zoom to record our presentation and upload the edited recording to YouTube.
Presentation Slides - A Study on Infographics
Group Video Presentation - FLIP Topic 1: Types of Infographics
Individual Task
Other than the group tasks, each student was assigned an individual task that required us to redesign a poorly constructed infographic by using a free online design tool of our choice. After designing, we should also give the design tool a rating and review for its difficulty, intuitiveness, usefulness, design templates and choices.
My plan of action for this task:
- Choose a poorly designed infographic from the internet,
- Examine the issues,
- Provide the possible solutions for improvement,
- Choose an online design tool and template,
- Redesign the infographic,
- Make a post for the whole process,
- Review and rate the chosen design tool.
The Chosen One
I found this infographic that was meant to present social media usage.
What's the Issue?
The primary use of infographics is to simplify complex information and present it in a way that is visually pleasing and comfortable to read. The biggest issue of this infographic is that it's forcing the viewers to do more reading. This infographic defeated its purpose and caused more confusion as opposed to clarity. The infographic mixed in all sorts of information into one questionable circular design that did not even indicate to the viewers where to start reading and how to read. The circular design could not even fit all of the categories and had to squeeze in the figures of 2012 and 2013 in the middle of the circle, causing a sudden break of flow.
How to Improve?
- Groups and separate the information into different topics - the birth of each social media, the number of users through the years, the amount of content posted.
- Incorporate the appropriate data visualisation
- A line chart or bar chart to show the increase and decrease of users
- A timeline to show when each social media was launched
Design Tool
As I was doing research for the group presentation, I came across various sites and tools that provide templates for creating infographics. For example, Venngage, Visme, Infogram, Piktochart and Canva. I tried searching templates on Venngage and Visme but both sites did not work out for me. I found a suitable template on Venngage but I had to upgrade my account in order to export the file. I did not want to spend extra money on a small task. On the other hand, I could not sign in to Visme which prevented me from using it from the start. Therefore, I turned to trusty-old Canva to start redesigning.
Redesigning: Trials and Error
Creating the small timeline of the launch of some social media was relatively easy and the process went smooth. However, once I created the bar graph for the number of users, the end product did not meet my expectations.
At that point of time, transforming the information to either graph seemed pointless to me. It did not show the actual growth or drop of users because the data was incomplete. Not all figures of the social media were present for each year in the original infographic, while one of the social media (Myspace) had two different figures to indicate the number of users in 2010. I had no idea which one to key in. Seriously I could not convince myself to include inaccurate graphs in the infographic, thus I scraped the graphs and opt for an alternative.
Redesigning: Alternative
After much consideration, I decided to transform the whole original infographic into a timeline infographic. The rational behind this was that the information was already categorised based on years, all I need to do was to rearrange the information into a continuos timeline.
- Difficulty: 3/10
- I have used Canva before several times so I am familiar with its workspace and options. I had no issue using the tool.
- Intuitiveness: 8/10
- Usefulness: 9/10
- The alignment guides were extremely useful in aligning the text and images up. I find it more accurate than other free design tools.
- One point deducted because I did not like the zoom in and zoom out tool. I habitually zoom in and out using the scroll wheel on my mouse. When I do this in Canva, it would always end up 'over-zooming'.
- Design Template & Choice: 7/10
- The overall quality for free templates is good but it definitely requires more effort if you really want the design to look even stunning. There is a good variety of themed-templates that serves different occasions. The premium ones are exclusive for upgraded accounts and I already learned to overlook them when choosing.
W2 / 11.01.2022 - 13.01.2022
Topic 2 - Saul Wurman's L.A.T.C.H.
After the presentation of the first FLIP topic, we were immediately instructed to start the next FLIP presentation. Ms Anis the next two topics to different groups. Group 1 (the group I am in), 2 and 3 would present the second topic which is Saul Wurman's L.A.T.C.H, while Group 4, 5 and 6 will do the following topic. We need to present the video on the coming Thursday (13/1), meaning we only had two days to prepare and complete this FLIP presentation. Fortunately, it was a rather simple topic to explain, so I was confident that we could finish it in time.
On the same day after the lecture, our group met up virtually to discuss the presentation and then assigned different tasks to the members. Then, the members recorded the presentation and finalised the video on the following day.
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