Project story, evaluation and conclusion

REFLECTIONS ON LECTURE AND SOURCE MATERIAL

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LECTURE

How does project evaluation help you and your client / audience measure effectiveness of your final outcome?

The lecturers all evaluate the process and outcome in slightly different ways, all of which are valid methods. For instance Feld look at what they have learnt: what worked, what didn't work and what could be done differently to potentially make their approach better in the future. They believe in giving yourself time to step back to be able to make the right rational decisions about the process but seem to keep the evaluation process away from their clients. A+P evaluate at every step of the process to ensure the outcome is correct at the point of delivery. They also measure their successes based on repeat business. Studio Dunbar work with the client to receive feedback and sometimes ask for audience based participation. It is interesting that Eden Spiekermann do not sing from the same hymn sheet as Stijn feels that you can't necessarily expect the client to give feedback on a project due to the length of time a project goes from concept to realisation. However, Luke asserts that you should actively seek feedback on the work produced.

What they do all seem to agree on is the journey taken. Have you stayed on track and in reviewing the brief, did you meet the clients or your own objectives? By opting to evaluate the project throughout the process it seems you can provide yourself and your client with the trust and belief that the final outcome will be the correct course of action. A+P insist on creating brands that connect with their audience which opens up different areas of questioning for the multitude of aspects involved in a brands creation.

There is a general consensus that once you have received all the feedback you are not only able to address any issues that may have been raised but are also able to look on the project with fresh eyes and build a narrative to explain your case to others in a way that they understand. Feld assert that when creating a narrative you should take the focus away from technical or design aspects but think more freely to be able to present the project as a clear understandable whole.

TAKE OUTS
— Evaluate: What worked, what didn't, did it fit the brief?, why?, and if issues are raised, what can be done better?
— Take a step back and create a narrative that encompasses the whole that can easily be followed.
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RESOURCES

How designers measure success (or failure) / Pedro Canhenha

Pedro breaks success down into a series of bite size chunks to make it understandable for the reader to understand, equating success with the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. He measures design success by asking the following brief questions: Did the project delight and satisfy?, did it create revenue?, did you increase brand awareness?, do you think the brand will have longevity?, was feedback and reflection positive and was the process satisfactory?. Using this simple set of questions greatly helps you to understand and unpack your own process and evaluate a projects successes or failures.

At the root of this lies how you approached and used research methods to come to a finished outcome, and how this evolved over time. Your research process is key to a projects success. What you researched and what you discovered. The purpose is to create a collective understanding between designer and client in which the designer can create and realise a project. This also helps a client to give valuable and insightful feedback; was the outcome innovative, easy to use and understand, accessible, useful and does it have lasting value and if not what can benefit from improvement?

Attaining the right feedback and making the necessary improvements enables the designer to better present the work to third parties. If you able to validate a solution it gives the client the tools to take ownership of the project once it is out of your hands, create initiatives and realise their ambitions.

In the second article he talks about the many changes in our industry and the pressure this can place on an individual in defining their specialisation and role. I'm with Pedro when he asserts that college or university doesn't really prepare you for the practice of daily making from a practical/technical standpoint and that the digital space can feel like a barrier to entry for young designers who don't have these skillsets. I think it's important for designers to have some idea of the direction of their practice before they leave in order to up skill and a continuing awareness of the changes in the industry. Having sad this, I also feel that companies need to take people on with a training programme in mind which is currently absent from the industry. I agree that with experience comes reward but agencies put unnecessary pressure on graduates to be ready to hit the ground running when they are fresh off a course.

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Workshop Challenge

Notes evaluating the success or failure of my Industry set project

For my industry set project I chose the Science Museum Group’s online archive brief with a simple set of strategic goals in mind.

These were:
To position the archive to a broader audience beyond the confines of the web, to make the experience easy to understand and navigate and to surprise, delight and personalise the experience with the aim of driving return and new traffic.

From a personal perspective I saw this as an opportunity to work on a brief for a cultural institution, and area of interest for my personal practice, and to expand my understanding of digital design processes and platforms.

Aligning my thinking with Peter L. Phillips assertion that ‘the strategy document could be formed from the materials supplied’; I felt that the design objectives, audience and outcome of the set brief were very clear and not to be deviated too far from.

From my own perspective I felt that the goal of the set brief was to make the site and its objects more widely accessible by creating personalised experiences that could be shared on a social level.

As early as week 5, James Shaws thinking also aligned with mine in that he felt the experience could be a tactile one – experienced in the real world as well as online.

I explored in detail similar archive sites finding them to be pedestrian libraries with huge amounts of content and not places of surprise, intrigue or discovery. The examples explored were perfect from a research point of view, but I felt that they were not engaging for first time visitors. Of the examples explored the V&A Collections site stood head and shoulders above the rest in terms of its design, navigation and content, it’s vibrant branding lightening the mood.

I formulated a simple ‘living’ strategy document with my main aim being not to focus on one specific idea or outcome, and to keep an open mind just to see where the process would take me.

The formulation of my initial mood boards helped me to define a potential look and feel for my target audience, which was presented to my stakeholders to gauge if I was going in the right direction or not. The insights gained from my peers was that a ‘sensorial’ and ‘inviting’ experience was craved after two years of covid.

Post discussion, I further refined my mood board making it light, airy, colourful and technologically influenced in its approach, which seemed to go down well with my peers.

From a design perspective I looked to break away from my usual approach and pushed myself to use the technology and programs I was used to in ways that I wouldn’t normally explore. This resulted in a series of experiments or ‘interactive pathways’ using distorted type, objects and shapes to create something new, vibrant and fresh.

I was aware of the pre-existing graphic elements used by the Science Museum Group based on a self-initiated audit, but wanted to push beyond this to see where the process would take me. One thing I noticed in my research was how dark and uninviting their archive site was and that this was definitely something that needed to be addressed.

Initially I had the idea that objects from the archive could be viewed universally in your own region or city and geo-located through an app using augmented reality. This was to be supported with localised pop-up digital exhibitions and digital advertising displays with the central idea of bringing the archive to you, thus making it more human centric and personal to your own environment.

John Stack liked the visual aspects of the distorted objects sketches but after our week 8 crit I felt that there wasn’t enough substance to the underlying idea when compared to the other amazing projects on show. Harriet also pointed out to me in a tutorial that she would not engage with augmented reality at all and wasn’t sure others would either.

There were many surprises as well as ‘designed’ failures along the way. However, after a couple of tutorials and a crazy ‘25’, I refocussed my process and came up with a fresh approach.

I reframed my idea by aligning the archive to key calendar events such as ‘International Women’s Day’ or ‘Black History Month’. This was also partly a reaction to my own findings on the existing archive that women were largely underrepresented or documented which frankly annoyed me. However, that is not to say that other, more benign themes in the calendar year such as ‘Christmas’ or ‘St. Patrick’s Day’ could not also be presented to reveal their own object stories. The idea was simply to promote a theme over a selected time frame and to tell human centric stories relating to the bjects and the people involved in their discovery or invention.

Building on this idea, the themed online events would be promoted through the experiential use of outdoor spaces, temporary pop up canvases such as digital advertising and passive social media posts. The aim being to draw you towards the site as well as creating social sharing opportunities. The online experience would then be augmented with recommendations from popular culture sourced from third party sites. This would in turn give the user more of a vested interest to engage, explore and continue using the archive and to ultimately socially share the experience. This aligned with my research into trends with FutureLabs and others which highlighted the use of omnichannel marketing to broaden a brands reach. John also touched on some of the emerging trends I discovered as part of this process such as the importance of harnessing personal behaviours or ‘habit loops’.

Overall I had a great response from stakeholders within the age group with regards to both the central concept of giving the archive themes over a specific time frame, as well as to the AI aspects where film, literature, television and audio would be used to contextualise the subject matter with popular culture. I.E: Encouraging you to explore the subject matter beyond the archive itself. The design prototypes and design aspects were also largely well received.

Christina Gleave went even further to say that she could see this becoming a series of public programmes where workshops, talks and events could happen within the museum’s themselves.

One aspect I failed on was the use of language for my themed events as a few of my stakeholders took slight offence to the title ‘Mothers of Invention’. In my defence I was trying to reference popular culture in the title in using the name of Frank Zappa’s band, but I understand their concerns and simplified it to read ‘Pioneers of Invention’. In fairness, some did not get the reference, which is good because they are the right age and audience.

I think all in all I have achieved my initial aim in repositioning the archive, broadening it’s appeal, making it more visible through omnichannels, engaging and sometimes surprising and making experiences that are socially shareable. I have worked alongside my stakeholders throughout the process and have taken into account emerging trends and stakeholder feedback; so In many aspects I feel I have been largely successful with this project.

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REFLECTIVE NOTES/FEEDBACK

I posted up on the Ideas Wall and Facebook but to date (13/01/21) have not received any reflections or feedback.

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Final Video Here: https://vimeo.com/666140563