Workbook : Pen & Paper Tools for getting from Research to Design [See->Sort->Sketch]

1. Pen & paper techniques for getting from research to design WORKBOOK March | April 2010 Kate Rutter <kate@adaptivepath.com>

2. Why visuals work Pictures Visual ideas communicate a Images help get through more complete groups move faster idea faster...together So that the resulting designs reﬂect the people and their needs. March | April 2010 : p. 3

3. The process March | April 2010 : p. 4

4. The toolkit March | April 2010 : p. 5

5. Transcripts Note taking Coding And more! Spreadsheets Jotting March | April 2010 : p. 6

6. Jotting •  As you review transcripts, pull out key words and phrases and jot them down. •  Jot the words that you heard, plus small sketches and accents to illustrate the ideas and make them visually recognizable. •  Big ideas deserve more ink on paper. Make the text bigger, underline it, give it a border, or try other ways to make the idea stand out. •  Jotting is a visual way to track research data. It illustrates and accents the data, so it becomes memorable and rediscoverable. Jotting breaks down observations into their most •  Important ideas risk being lost in the analysis process. Using visual cues to call out the elemental parts and captures important concepts keeps them highly visible. the weight of each idea. March | April 2010 : p. 7

7. Relationship Models Word Sort And more! Bottom-up Sorting Theme Boards Capture Afﬁnity Boards Diagrams Clustering March | April 2010 : p. 8

8. Theme Boards •  Working with the project team, go through the jots and begin to pull related ideas together. •  Stick related ideas together on a board, a large piece of paper, or even a wall. •  Keep moving ideas around until clear themes emerge. •  Give each theme a memorable, concise, and visible label. •  The goal of theme boards is to look across all research findings and start to pull together the Theme boards display the big themes. results of synthesis. They •  Theme boards are a group activity. They show the patterns and encourage everyone on the team to express themes that act as a bridge what they see as the big themes, and have directed conversations on what it all means. to the design process. March | April 2010 : p. 9

9. Storyboards Reports Presentations And more! Decks Personas Concept Video Sketches Reels Books March | April 2010 : p. 10

10. Concept Sketching •  Look at the big themes and figure out what story you want to tell. (If you’re not sure, just start writing a few notes to yourself on scrap paper. The story will emerge.) •  Pick a visualization that’s good for communicating what’s important about the story. •  Do a rough sketch. Iterate and evolve it. You will probably do a couple revisions. •  Enhance the final version using the all the tools from jotting. * The whole point * •  Concept sketches help you tell stories about Concept sketches capture a what you learned, what’s important, and what story, illustrate the opportunities and actions it points towards. relationships of elements, or •  Concept sketches should be rich but “get-able” a communicate a set of visuals that others can remember and refer back to. related ideas. March | April 2010 : p. 11

11. Tools Techniques Capture Boards Bottom-up Trees Capture boards consolidate and collect Bottom-up trees help organize related related info in one visible, analog space. data into bundled concepts. Use them to identify emergent patterns and themes. March | April 2010 : p. 12

12. Tools Techniques Graphs Grids Graphs show a relationship of data Grids show important categories or elements. They often tell a story that dimensions as columns and rows. emphasizes comparison and time. They make us want to fill in the Variations like pie charts and Venn blanks. They often tell a story of the diagrams show relationships of parts to a completeness or incompleteness of a whole. total landscape. March | April 2010 : p. 13

13. Tools Techniques Mind Maps 2 x 2s Mind Maps show a free association of 2 x 2s plot similar items along two concepts and their implications. They axes to illuminate major differences. tell the story of what we know and They often tell a story about which where we could go with it, and are options are more desirable, forward- often used as a starting point for looking, appropriate, etc. extending ideas. March | April 2010 : p. 14

14. Tools Techniques Mandalas Mandalas communicate the implications of a strong, core idea through several radiating layers or dimensions. They tell a multi-level story of an interrelated ecosystem with a high-level themes and low- level details. March | April 2010 : p. 15

15. Credits Resources Presentation content imagery... • Kate Rutter, Adaptive Path | www.intelleto.com • Leah Buley, Adaptive Path | www.ugleah.com • Rachel Hinman, Adaptive Path | rachelhinman.com (jots) Things to read... • The Mind Map Book, by Tony Buzan • Rapid Viz, by Kurt Hanks and Larry Belliston •  The Back of the Napkin, by Dan Roam • Rapid Problem Solving with Post-it Notes, by David Straker • Graphic Facilitation, by David Sibbert (Grove Publishing) • Thinking with a Pencil, by Henning Nelms Places to go to get inspired... • Flickr,(www.flickr.com) search for “sketchnotes”, “visual thinking,” “mind maps” and “graphic recording” • Indexed: indexed.blogspot.com is a daily collection of humorous graphs and charts Places to learn... • VizThink is a community of visual practitioners. They have an online community and a wiki with great resources. www.vizthink.com | wiki.vizthink.com • www.visual-literacy.org has a periodic chart of visualizations that is quite inspiring. • International Forum of Visual Practitioners is a professional association of visual folks: http://www.ifvp.org/ • David Gray’s visual thinking school: http://www.squidoo.com/communicationnation • MIT Sketching tutorials: http://web.mit.edu/2.009/www/resources/sketchingTutorials.html • The Grove: consulting, training, books and presentations. www.grove.com • xPlane : consulting, training and presentations. www.xplane.com March | April 2010 : p. 16