'How to…' Evaluation

What problem did you identify?

As a group we all had very similar 'how to' questions that we were initially given these were all based around travel. We also linked business into it too, this gave us the idea of doing a travel guide for a businessman. The problem we were solving was how to travel as a business man, the outcome was going to be a travel guide for a businessman. Inside the guide it would appeal to them by being all info graphs. 

What evidence did you find to support your decisions?

Like i said before the initial idea came from all of us having very similar subjects around our how to question. We didnt want to just go with one idea so we merged them all together. The research that each individual had done for there own 'how to' question was the evidence to start off with. It showed that there was information out there about it, but we wanted to collate it all together into one book for a certain audience; the business man

What methods did you use to gather your evidence and what forms did it take?

Primary research:

Surveys - Everyone had done a survey as part of there own research, this gave us alot of information on individual questions which we were going to involve in the guide.

Books - we went into the library/shops to look at travel guides already out there.

Business books - Eve had a business magazine which was full of ideas/ info graphs which we used for a lot of our inspiration.

Secondary Research

All general information for info graphs - for the research into each section for the guide, the majority of this was done on the internet from information available on there. This was to form the majority of the research for us and the main information we would use to form the info graphs. To make suer we had reliable information, we didn't use any unfamiliar websites.

Quantitative:

- Survey results/stats

- distances between cities within countries

- time taken between cities within countries

- safest ways to travel in countries

- % of population that speak a certain language

- size of guide/passport

- economy of each country

- climate of each country

Qualitative: 

- all general research into sections - secondary research

- looking at books/magazines in shops and library

- looking at info graphs

What methods of research did you find useful and why?

I found that having gone and looked at previous guides online and in shops/library and also having the business magazine the best research to have. Obviously without researching into information for the info graphs we wouldn't have them. But looking at the guides/magazines gave me alot of ideas on the layout and how to design the info graphs, especially the business magazine, when we looked through this it had info graphs on similar subjects to ours so we felt that we were on the right track doing it.

How did these inform your response to your problem?

From looking at the business magazine it made the layout of the book alot better, I knew what the business class were looking for; clean simple design, straight to the point, with the information relevant and easy to find. I think this did have a big influence on our final guide, which i think does look very professional and laid out well. 

What methods did you encounter as problematic?

I dont think we really had any method that caused a problem, we got all the relevant information we needed to create all the content for the book. The only thing i would say is that when we came to put it together we didn't have anything to go with the info graphs, any text to explain or expand on the graphs, so we had to go back and research to get more. Other than that we got everything we needed.

How did you overcome this?

We went back and researched until we got the information we needed.

What research could you have carried out that would have proved more useful?

We didn't really do that much primary research, we could have done another survey finding out more specific information for content or the design of the guide.

We could have gone and spoken to actual businesses to see if this would be of any use to them and if they would want to use such a product, this again could of given us more insight in what relevant information to include inside the guide. 

But to do all of this i feel that we would of needed more time on the project as it was a push in doing what we have done now.

List five things that you have learnt about the design process over the last two weeks

- Research is everything - without doing enough/relevant research you cannot get the right outcome

- Primary research is the best way to get reliable and worthy research for a project

- Organisation is needed - plan out each step of the process to make sure you have covered it, and when working in a group plan this too.

- If working in a group, i found communication is very important. In our group we were always in touch with each other and knew what everyone was doing, i think thats how we got all the mass amount of research done and ended up producing a 30page book.

- Its always good/okay to go back a step and do something again/ more indepth.

List five things you would do different next time

- Make sure that everyone is happy with the idea we are producing.

- Spend longer on desgning/ putting everything together.

- Get the presentation up to scratch and on par with final outcome.

- Spend as much time as possible working as a group 

- Do more primary research.

Overall I did enjoy this brief, working in a group isn't my favourite because of certain reasons, which did happen in our group; clashing of ideas, people wanting to take control, people not putting as much effort in as other.

I feel that my role in the group was high. Towards the end of brief i felt that i was keeping the group together sort of and making sure we had the outcome done. I put together the booklet, from the designs and my designs everyone had done, i collated everything and made the final guide; the design of it. I designed it how i thought it should be and then showed it to the group and any criticism etc we sorted out and made sure everyone was happy with it. I then added little touches like page numbers and section heading along the bottom of the page, just to make it look more professional, which personally i think it did. There was some issues with the printing of it, it wasn't the best quality and some mistakes were made, but we can always print another better quality version.

The final Crit

The crit went really well i felt. We split the presentation up so everyone had something to say, which i felt we all delivered it very confidently and said the right things. Any questions that were asked we replied to and answered them well and confident. The only criticism we had was that the presentation didn't portray how good and good quality the guide was. When the tutors saw the actual guide they said they were very surprised because the presentation didnt make it look that good, but when looking at it in your hand they said it looked very professional within the layout of the guide and all the info graphs look relevant and well very designed.