Final Project

Design Rationale

Throughout the year we learned about various graphical models as well as theorists. These ideas have helped us achieve successful grades in our assignments. For our final project we decided to create a visualization on what we have learned this semester in order to explain it to someone. We volleyed ideas such as crosswords, game boards, and others but after much thought we did not find them to be successful. Using what we have learned about color, shape, orientation, and types of visualization we have created a puzzle that when pieced together, represents what we learned in visual comm. We used the dual-coding theory, which enabled us to represent the main concepts of the course. The first idea we had was to use the words “visual comm” in the middle of our graphic with main concepts, theorist, and points inside of them. However, we felt that this was just satisfactory and decided to sleep on the idea. The morning of our morning second meeting, Jordan revealed a second portion of our project that would make it excel. Our “aha!” moment came when we decided to make our main “visual comm” graphic into a puzzle and then break up our presentation piece by piece. We found this to be more effective as it brought a bigger message to our project. When trying to add the words visual comm to the puzzle, the cognitive load became too heavy. The visual comm letters were too confusing so we decided against the idea. At first we thought that using four colors would make the graphic clear and concise but after looking at the final graphic we decided it was too boring and lacked creativity. When all the puzzle pieces fit together, the key concepts and theories are come together to create the class “visual comm.” Each puzzle piece represents an assignment we did individually as a class. As the class came to a close we came together and used all our knowledge to create this final graphic.

Reflection:

Working on this project with Tim and Jordan was definitely a great experience. If everyone in class worked individually, then chances are everyone would not have incorporated all of the important things they have learned during their presentations. This project looked hard at first, but it turned out to be pretty simple. Tim and Jordan were great to work with, because they were friendly, patient, and had great ideas. It was fun to work and plan our project with them, and I'm glad I met them! Together, we created a fun and interesting puzzle that people can learn from. I liked working on this project, because it reminded me of the important information I learned, and all of the hard work I did this semester!

Multiple Variant Graph

For this assignment, I had to choose the most efficient graph I made, which was my line graph. This line graph was about the number of accepted students and applicants over the years at RWU. Next, I made a graph that included the number of service hours done by students over the years. It took a while, but I was finally able to combine these two graphs. The story I was trying to tell was that as more students apply and are accepted, the more service hours students will do over the years. Every year, the number of applicants, accepted students, and service hours increases. I was able to show this by including the number of students and service hours on the y-axis. The x-axis was just the years. I titled this new graph "RWU Student Statistics."

In order to make a graph showing the number of service hours done by students over the years, all I did was add another column to the excel chart for the applicants and acccepted students. It took awhile to finish the new graph, because it was hard to make the years show at the bottom. I ended up having to write the years myself, and copied and pasted them from a word document onto the graph. This assignment took me awhile, but my graph turning out good!

Storyboard Assignment

After looking over the pictures for this assignment, I decided to pick three that I would definitely focus on: the girl holding the apple while being surrounded by bushes, the man praying, and the four guys covering their noses and mouths while being surrounded by dust. This assignment really made me use my imagination to think about the types of pictures I could use, and how I could tell a story with them. I ended up using google and clicking on various pictures to make sure that their qualities would be good for the storyboard. All of the pictures have captions next to them to help tell a story.

I did not think that the picture of the girl holding the apple went with the other two pictures, so I did a separate story for that picture. I knew that the girl had to be holding an apple because she was surrounded by bushes like she had just picked it. Since it is the fall, I thought that a story of her and her mom making an apple pie would be perfect. For this storyboard, I used the scene to scene transition. First I showed the picture of her. Then, I showed a picture of a filled apple basket like she had just picked apples. Next, I showed a picture of flour, butter, and other ingredients that are needed to make an apple pie. Finally, I showed a picture of an apple pie to conclude the story.

For the second part of the assignment, I used the picture of the guys in the dust, and the man praying. The story is about a man who lives in an area where conditions aren't good. The guy decides to pray for conditions to get better. This really made me think, because I had to come up with other problems that dust could cause. I thought about how people and other things would be affected by the dust. This made me realize that dust could make people sick, and plants could die because of it. I ended up using the scene to scene transition for this storyboard as well, and started the story with the picture of the four guys standing in the dust. Next I put a picture of a kid being treated by the doctor to show how the dust affected him. After that, I put a picture of dead plants to show how crops and other plants that provide health could be destroyed. Finally, I included the picture of the man praying to show how much he wanted things to get better. Pollution is a problem, and will continue to get worse if we do not do anything about it.

Various Charts

Here is my simple Chart of Data and my stacked area, scattered plot, and connected scattered plot charts:

This assignment was very difficult. In order to get statistics that related to RWU, I had to travel to a lot of places on campus. I finally visited DSS to see if they had anything, and they gave me a couple of books that alumnus receive. These books have reports that include statistics on certain things like the numbers of students who applied and got accepted to RWU over the years. In excel, I had to incorporate three things into charts: the years, number of applicants, and acceptance rates. I even had to convert the percentages of the accepted students into whole numbers.

In order to create these three charts, I put all of the information into three columns and highlighted them. Then, I experimented with the different types of charts to see which ones would display the information best. I could not use the bar chart because the years would not be displayed best visually. I could not use certain charts because the years would not be displayed well, and the charts would not be visually pleasing. Originally, I had the percentages in my chart before I converted them to numbers. The percentages did not appear to show, and I did not know why. I realized that they did not show because the numbers of students were in the thousands, and the percentages were not above one-hundred, making them hard to see since they appeared at the way bottom. The last problem I had,was after I had converted the percentages into numbers. Somehow, those numbers turned into prices!

The story I was trying to tell is that RWU is getting more and more popular as the years go on. This means that anyone who applies to this school could have trouble getting in with all of the competition. As a result of doing this project, I learned that excel really is not an easy application to use. However, when displaying data, and once familiar with excel, it is a great application to work with!

Flow Chart

Even though I have ordered most of my books for school on Amazon, I did not remember all of the steps completely. I ended up having to pretend that I was actually ordering a book on Amazon. I went through all of the steps that I would have to take if I was ordering the book The Lovely Bones, and was careful not to click "place order." As I pretended to shop for The Lovely Bones, I made my flow chart. It took me a couple of tries to finally get my flow chart right. I was not completely satisfied with the first one, which is why I made a second one.

In my first diagram, I felt that everything kind of looked the same. In my second diagram, I solved this problem by making certain shapes different colors. I made the circles red, the rectangles blue, and the diamonds green. The first diagram's direction did not look that good either. I solved this problem by making the diagram go to the side and down again, instead of having things go to the side and up.

Making the second flow chart on finding dual-coding research on google scholar, was easier than making the flow chart for purchasing books on Amazon. This was probably the case because I had already gone through the process of making a flow chart, and knew what mistakes not to make. Once again, I used the primary colors to make the shapes stand out more, and had the diagram go in the same direction as before. Finding research on google scholar is not as hard as buying a book on Amazon. Also, depending on how much or what type of research you need, finding research on google scholar does not take that long. To make the flow chart accurate, I went through the process of researching dual-coding on google scholar. I did this while making the flow chart, and got my final result.

As a result of making these flow charts, I learned that even though making a flow chart looks like a simple process, it is not that easy to make. A flow chart may look simple, but if you do not involve every step for a process, the viewer might have problems. Ordering a book on Amazon is a long process. I had to be really careful when I went through each step because at one point, I almost ordered a book I did not need! Finding informtation on google scholar is not that long of a process, but it requires many steps.

*Note: I took another close up picture of the bottom of my flow charts since the font is hard to read in the original pictures.

Emergency Exit Diagram

Something that needed improvement was the emergency exit diagram located in my dorm room. The first thing I did was take a picture of it, and put it on my computer. Next, I made the diagram bigger, and printed out copies of it to work with. Since the diagram was the most important thing, I decided to focus on that before working on the layout of the instructions.

In my first draft, I color-coded the rooms, bathrooms, and hallways to see what colors would work. I also outlined the building in brown since that is my building’s color, and made notes, such as making the yellow rooms purple, using only four colors, and outlining every room’s border with the room’s color. I drew eyes with an arrow pointing to the stairs because it reminded me of a sign I saw once, and I thought that it would help people to see the stairs better. This looked funny so I ended up not using it.

I made the next draft’s diagram even bigger and used fewer, and primary colors to make it easier to read. I also experimented with three different ways of coloring in and outlining the diagram.

In my final draft, the building and everything inside of it is outlined in black. Certain borders/objects are also outlined in their room’s color. I also drew arrows pointing straight into the parking lot from the building instead of to the sides of the building. The titles and important parts of these directions (such as public safety’s number) are red so that they stand out. The wording is also bigger and moved so that it is easier to read.

This assignment was definitely interesting, because it made me realize that there are many diagrams that need improvement. While doing this assignment, I was hoping that I would make an easier diagram for students to follow. I’m happy that I chose this diagram, because it is very important to everyone!

How to Make Spaghetti...

While making this diagram, it was hard to show so many steps in a simple way. What I ended up doing was combining certain pictures with each other. For example, instead of putting the running water with a plus sign and a pot next to it, I put the two pictures together so that the running water was entering the pot!
Since making spaghetti involves two parts (making the pasta and the sauce), I decided to make two sections. The top part of this diagram involves making the pasta, and the second part focuses on making the sauce.
In the first section, I drew an arrow from the faucet and pot to where the pot should be on the stove. I then drew an arrow to a stove nob. The stove nob has a circle of arrows around it demonstrating how to turn the stove burner on. After that, I drew arrows from a box of spaghetti and a wooden spoon pointing to the boiling pot of water. This demonstrates that those are the two things that have to go into the pot. I also got a picture of a timer, and drew it an arrow on it that pointed to the number nine, explaining how long the pasta has to be in the pot. Next, I drew a similar timer that is pointing to the number zero, and looks like it's making noise and shaking. This means that when the timer goes off, the pasta is done, and has to be drained in the sink. Next to the shaking timer is an equal sign that leads to a small diagram with the pasta-filled pot next to a sink. In the sink is a pasta-filled drainer. When the spaghetti is done, you have to drain it in the sink.
The second part was a lot easier to draw, since it's not hard to cook sauce from a jar. All I did was draw an arrow from the sauce to a covered pot that is heating. I then drew an equals sign between this pot and another uncovered pot with heated sauce in it. After that, I drew an arrow from the uncovered sauce pot to a bowl with plain spaghetti, symbolizing that you have to pour the sauce onto the spaghetti. Finally, I drew another equals sign between the bowl filled with plain spaghetti and a similar bowl filled with spaghetti and sauce. The bowl of spaghetti and sauce is circled, showing that this is what spaghetti should look like once it's finished.

Lawncare Project

Doing the lawn care project was probably the hardest project that I have done in this class so far. I started off doing a diagram that was similar to the one we did in class, only it replaced the words with pictures. Everything was all over the place, and it looked a little confusing. Instead of sticking with that one as my final project, I made a chart. It was hard to create the chart because I was worried that no one would understand it. All of us were also told not to use a lot of ink. I tried making my chart as simple as possible to make it easily understandable.

To make the chart easily understandable, I drew two thermometers on the left side of the page, one whose temperature was over 90 degrees, and one’s whose temperature was less than 90 degrees. By drawing a line in between the two thermometers, I separated them to make two separate sections on the page. In the first section of the page (the section that instructed what to do if the temperature was over 90 degrees), I made three columns. One was for wet or dry temperatures, another was for pests, and the third was for fertilizers. To represent “dry temperatures,” I used an umbrella with raindrops on top of it. To represent “wet temperatures” I just used a raindrop. For pests, I drew a picture of an ant. If there were no pests, I drew the same ant crossed out. In the fertilizer section, I drew a picture of grass with tiny dots all over it. Underneath it, I just put the fertilizer formulas (A-1-1, A-1, etc). I repeated this same process in the second section of the page that was for a temperature that was less than 90 degrees.

This assignment was challenging at first, but I’m proud that I was able to do it. I love how the chart looks neat, and even though the symbols I made were simple, they turned out great! I think that making this chart was definitely an interesting process.

My collage

Geographical Map

For my second assignment, I decided to do a geographical map. This past summer, I worked at Stop and Shop, so I ended up driving myself there a lot. This map focuses on my trip from my house to Stop and Shop. While doing this map, I encountered some problems. First, I was not sure what the buildings’ order was on my way to work. I ended up really concentrating and picturing the drive in my head. Then, I was able to remember what buildings were in certain places. I had an aha! moment when I realized that I passed the bank before coming to a red light. I also had a problem of not knowing what to do to symbolize the funeral home. I thought that a box with a flower in it would be appropriate because there are always a lot of flowers at a funeral home. Anyway, I was happy when I finally achieved my goal of showing the route I took going to Stop and Shop.

Mind Maps

Mind Map 1:

In my first mind map, I wanted to look at the problems I had with studying abroad. I was thinking about going to Italy, but there are no Communication programs there. Ireland and Australia were two other places that I thought I should consider because they have Communications programs, but do I really want to study abroad at those places instead of Italy? While making this map, I had problems trying to figure out what else I should include besides the cities of the places I was interested in, and how I would study abroad through those programs. Usually when I’m trying to make a decision, I look at the pros and cons. I ended up creating branches for the positive and negative aspects of each country. After returning to the mind map after my break , I had an AHA! moment when I was really trying to understand why I wanted to go abroad. I realized that what I wanted was to really explore and see a new place since I hardly travel. I also realized that aside from it being my dream for a long time, it would be an amazing experience for me, especially when certain schools don’t encourage studying abroad like Roger Williams.


Mind Map 2:

My second mind map was based off of the "interests" branch from my first mind map, which only included Ireland, Australia, and Italy. That way, I could really look at each country. Sometimes, I had trouble finding out why I wanted to go to certain countries more than others. I had another AHA! moment while working on this map. When I was trying to put down all of the reasons why I wanted to go to Italy, I realized that a big part of why I wanted to go there is because that’s where my family is from, and it has always been my dream to visit that place.



Conclusion:

As a result of doing these mind maps, I was able to determine where I want to study abroad-Florence, Italy. These maps helped me to realize that I truly wanted to go to Italy all along, and the only reason why I considered Ireland and Australia was because they had programs for Communications students. Why study abroad in countries that you’re not particularly interested in when you could go somewhere that you’ve always wanted to go to? True, Italy does not have a program for communications, but I could take electives there, or go there for the core curriculum!