Story Board

When doing the story boards I was first trying to use the photographs along with words to tell a story. Secondly, i wanted to use 2 of the pictures given to tell a story. I wanted to try to use as little words as possible, which was somewhat of a challenge.

I always thought writing comics would be easy. However, after doing the storyboards I realized that it is hard to tell a story with only using a few words. I did as best I could to get a short story going with a beginning, middle, and end. When I went to do the second story board, I thought how can any of these pictures possibly work together? After starring at them for about 5 minutes and digging into my imagination, I was able to come up with a funny story, and an inspiring story.

For the first story board, my first 2 pictures were scene to scene. The second and third picture were aspect to aspect because nothing really happens, but there is a moral to the story.

In my second story board, the first 2 pictures are moment to moment because it takes more than 2 frames to tell you what happens. However, the 2nd frame and 3rd frame are subject to subject because the 2 charachters interact with one another. I did not understand these transitions 100% but think as i look at more (and better) examples of professional storyboards I will get a better understanding.

Overall, I think writing comics or making storyboards can sometimes be harder then writing a full length story, because you want to say so much, but only have a little bit of space to do so. I can see how this is a helpful way to brainstorm for movie producers as well, especially with all of the different scene breaks.

rwu stats

After playing around with different type charts and graphs, it is easy to see which one conveys a lot of quantitative the best visually. I wanted to convey roger williams on campus crime in the past 4 years in an organized manner. My first simple chart is one of the four that i actually think works the best. It is simple, and the information is laid out right in front of you. There is no trying to understand what any lines mean or any confusion that may occur in other graphs.

The next graph i did was the bar graph, and it is hard to read because some of the bars are put together and others are seperated as you can see. It makes the information confusing and it makes it hard to tell which bars belong to which category.

The next was a pie chart, and this works very well, but for each category seperated. If you wanted to look at 4 different pie charts for each category (burglary, assault, etc) or one pie graph for crime all together over the years, then a pie chart would be great.

Lastly, i did a line graph and i feel that this works best. I had some technically difficulty because excel seperated the years into halfs as well. I did not know how to fix it because i am not great at excel, but overall the graph is organized you can compare the information. It is easy to read as well.

Overall, this assignment made me realize that there is not one graph or chart that works best in all cases. Each may work best in certain situations and how much information you are trying to show.

Flow Charts

I was pretty familiar with how to buy a book but not at all with google scholar so that flow chart was a big more of a struggle. However, the first chart took so many trial and error sketchs. I was trying to make it as easy as possible for someone who knew nothing about ordering a book online. My drawn chart looked unorganized, and sloppy. So I decided to do it on the computer to make it neater. After a few sketches and going through the flow chart to make sure it worked, I finally completed my final copy on the computer.

Next, I started working on the google scholar one. I first made my self somewhat familiar with the tool then began to do the chart. This one was easier because I had dont so many trial and errors with the first flow chart that I knew the basic format that looked the neatest and worked best when it came time to do this one. I don't think this chart is 100% perfect but as I become more familiar with the google scholar tool I will be able to make a better flow chart.

This project really showed me that flow charts need to look organized or they will not work in decreasing the cognitive load. All of the boxes and lines need to be the same size and in line with one another, and this actually does help the viewed get to where they need to be faster.

information graphic paper

The original information graphic I found was called "E-Book Universal." It was a concept map about electronic readers and everything that has to do with them: their company, their wireless provider, etc. I knew it had potential for people who were looking to buy and electronic reader and wanted some information on each one, but there was too much information, and some of the most important information was left out. There were concepts floating in the map with no lines attatched to them so i did not know the relationship to the other concepts. Overall, it was just confusing.

My biggest struggle was trying to decide if it was okay to take some information out of the original and adding some more information that was not there in order to make a new graphic that would be better understood for my audience and decrease the cognitive load. After doing much research, i figured it would be okay.

I started doing a flow chart, and came to decide i would use 5 pieces of information. I then created a table on the computer to make it neat and organized. I used color, lines, words, and images to make a graphic that would be useful, especially for the working memory. I learned that using all of these things helps the memory, and that using dual coding and the gestalt principles will help you make a graphic that uses "the least ink" but sends your message across.

spagetti dinner

When I first found out we had to draw how to make a spaghetti dinner, I was dreading doing it because i CANNOT draw. I thought of ways that i could get around drawing out all of the steps of making a spaghetti dinner, but figured there is really no other way other than using symbols so that many people can understand it. I decided to take it step by step and just do the best i could.

I started with the first step, of getting a pot and boiling water. I continued with all of the steps needed to cook spagetti. I was doing good until i thought, how will people know when to stop stirring the spaghetti while its boiling? This step took me a few minutes to figure out, and after drawing a stiff piece of spaghetti and a curly piece, i figured if it was drawn professionally, the audience would get the point.

This project made me realize that sometimes, using words improves the cognitive load. For some reason i associated words with confusing and a lot on the brain, but in this case, I think using words (if you knew what language would be reading it) would have been the easiest and quickest way to describe these steps.

landscaping problem

With the lawn chemical problem, I was trying to make a visual information graphic that would be a lot more simplified than the complicated map that we did in class. Although the map did organize the information and get us from point A to point B, (what was going on with the lawn, and what chemical we should use to fix it) this would probably not be the best thing to put on the back of a lawn product bag. So, with this graphic, I was trying to achieve the same information, in a way that is simple and easier to understand.

I know that in class the professor always emphasizes using the least amount of information to communicate a message. I had an idea of what i wanted to do in my head, but couldn't figure it out on paper, because it was mathematical and i am not a math person. So i simply just started to make a chart to organize the information using graphics. I figured most people in the united states can understand numbers, so i stuck with the + or -90 degrees. I then drew rain drops on a lawn or raindrops crossed out for wet and dry lawn, and drew bugs and bugs crossed out for pests or no pests. As i finished the chart, i realized the entire page was filled with information, and although it was symbols as opposed to words, it was a lot to process.

I then went back to my initial idea, which was to do a times table like we did when we were little to learn multiplication. I thought of how i could do this, and realized if i split up the information into +90, and -90, I would then only have 4 pieces of information (wet, dry, pests, no pests) and would be able to do these times tables. Instead of having to draw each symbol over and over again, i only have to draw each one twice.

I was happy that I truly went thought this process and learned a lot about cognitive load. I finally really realized what the professor meant by this concept. I think that even being an outsider looking at the two different pictures would feel a lot less stressed when looking at the second , less confusing graphic. I was proud with my final product and working through the problem.

collage