INFORMATION DESIGN: EXERCISES

Week 1 to Week 4

10/01/2023 – 03/02/2023 

Name: Joan Chiam Zi Woei 

Student ID: 0350211

Information Design

Exercise

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Instructions:

Module Information Booklet

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Exercises
FLIP Topic 1

In class, we were asked to research and present on different types of infographics together with our groupmates. My group and I created a presentation and showed it in class.

Fig. 1.1 Presentation on the various types of infographics

Task

On the next task it's an individual work where we look for poor constructed infographic and redesign it.

I went online and searched for poorly constructed infographic and found this

Fig. 1.2 Poorly designed infographic

In this infographic, it replaces bars with icons, which not only makes it harder to read but also might marginalize some women as well as offend some women. 

Process

At first I tried to use the graph provided by Canva to just put in the data and to generate the graph but I quickly realized that the graph will start from 0 by default even though all of my numbers start from 5 foot.

Fig 1.3 Process of redesigning

After realizing the problem, I made the graph manually by adding the lines in one by one to create the outlines of the graph. 

Fig 1.4 Process of redesigning

Fig 1.5 Finished Graph

Exercise 1: Quantify and Visualise Data

In this exercise, we were tasked to arrange objects with relevant indicators written out with pens to visualise the quantity and data. I chose to use packets of chili sauce for this exercise.

Fig. 2.1 Packets of chili sauce from different brands

After arranging the packets, I decided to focus on the brand of the packets and then the colour of the packets. This is the following data I sorted

• Total of chili sauce packets: 16 
• No. of colours: 3 (yellow, red, white)
• No. of yellow packets: 5
• No. of red packets: 8
• No. of white packets: 3

Fig. 2.2 Final assembly of the chili sauce packet data

This is my final outcome. I'm quite happy with this task as it was quite interesting to do.

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Exercise 2: L.A.T.C.H (10%)

Flip Topic 2

Location / Alphabet / Time / Category / Hierarchy Organize a group of information into a visual poster that combined and utilizes the LATCH principles

Fig. 3.1 Group's presentation on the L.A.T.C.H. system.

Our next task is to design an infographic that applies a minimum of four L.A.T.C.H. principles from any database that we want. I chose to organize the characters from a cartoon show called Adventure Time. In this show, each character comes from a different nation (location), and there are 3 different elements shown on the map that each character fits into (category). Each nation have a ruler while there's also the knights and citizens (hierarchy). Lastly, there can be multiple characters of the same nation, elements and position, so these characters are further organized according to their names (alphabet). 

Fig. 3.2 Nation division

I started by sorting out each of the nation so that it will be easier to organize the location of the characters as there is the Ice kingdom, Candy kingdom and etc. 

Fig 3.3 Characters used in the infographic.

I proceeded to create gather picture for each character to put into the infographic. I obtained the portrait of the character from the internet.

Fig 3.4 Final L.A.T.C.H. infographic

I organized all the characters and made sure they are from the correct location and made sure to name each location without mistake. I finally put everything together in Adobe Illustrator, and this is my final result.

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Flip Topic 3

During Week 3, we learned about Miller's law of chunking in class. Chunking is grouping information together in ways that can make people understand quickly and efficiently. As a group, we prepared a presentation during class.

Fig. 4.1 Group's presentation slides on Miller's law of chunking

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Flip Topic 4

During Week 4, we learnt about Manuel Lima's nine directives of visualizing information. My group organized a presentation slide to better understand visualizing information. 

Fig. 5.1 Group's presentation slides on Manuel Lima's nine Information Visualization Manifesto

Learning about these directives of visualizing information helped me prioritize the parts of information design that are more important than the others and it also gave me a lot of tips on how to improve my information design work.