Monday 12 December 2011

'How to.....' - Self Evaluation

  • What problem did you identify?
The problem my group identified was "How to travel as a businessman."

  • What evidence did you find to support your decisions?
I found a range of evidence to support my groups decisions, this ranged from visual inspirations and ideas to help us know the standard of work that is out there, as well as to help us know what has already been done. Other evidence was how information graphics worked as well as topical research that we all individually looked into. My research was to look into current survival guides and business clothing, travel, packing techniques. 

  • What methods did you use to gather your evidence and what forms did it take?
I looked mainly online because I felt the recources in the library did not quite fit the needs of my research. I put together online questionaires and looked at Youtube and other viral videos that helped me understand easy travel techniques. I did find some amusing gentleman websites through search engines that prooved to be very useful when explaining what a person needs when traveling on a business trip. These websites explained step by step guides to topics like "how to bundle pack." They also supplied imagery that I ended up using to draw simple info graphics. Overall due to my individual research that looked at things like "how to fold a shirt" I only got primary and secondary research whereas the rest of my group had good quality quantitative and qualitative research.

  • What methods of research did you find useful and why? How did these inform your response to your problem?
I found that the questionaires my group looked into were quite useful because we had power over what we wanted to be answered. This is better than scrolling through pages of the web trying to find anwers that dont quit fit the brief your working on. I also found useful the step by step guides I found on the "how to be a gentleman" website. I struggle with following instructions myself and it helped me learn to push myself when it came to designing my "how to bundle pack design." because I had to read the instructions to know what I was designing.

  • What methods did you encounter as problematic?
I found my groups organisation methods at the beginning slightly problematic because I felt that we jumped into an idea very quickly. The members of the group all had a busy timetable so it was hard to meet up and discuss our work. I also felt that the topics we were researching into were very beyond a lot of my knowledge. I was open to researching and solving this problem but I dont think I had the skills or the knowledge to know what type of business information I was looking for. 

  • How did you overcome this?
I think the group came together with our organisation at the end because of the pressure to succeed in a subject that everyone felt that was quite alien to them. Members like David and Nathan did a good amount of work. David had the brains to know what to research and Nathan took the lead, especially in the design process. 

  • What research could you have carried out that would have proved more useful?
I could have figured out a way of finding quality quantitative and qualitative research because they are more facts and figures. I could have done some more infographics in the forms of graphs and data mapping.


You should reflect on your  individual contributions to group work and evaluate your own experience, opinions and decisions. Once you have completed your self evaluation.

I feel that I could have done more research work if I was confident with the subject matter that we were trying to achieve. I think certain members got frustrated with this because they felt restricted to what their visions were.

 I do feel that I was the first person to lay out a design on the table. I think my design work was strong and looked to a contempory standard but at the same time looked neutral so members could go away and still achieve the same style. I wanted to make the guide look like it had been designed, so it did not look like a buntch of graphs made in Excel. I do sadly feel that a couple of the pages in the guide do look like they were! 

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

  1. Working in groups can be hard, especially when there is conflict over content and design styling.
  2. Research is very important and you cannot just rely on the internet
  3. Time management is harder to control in a group, without someone taking the lead.
  4. You have to learn to be able to work with other people because that is how the design studio works
  5. Don't get put off by the unfamiliar. 


List five things you would do different next time.

  1. Don't jump straight into an idea
  2. Communicate ideas to the group better
  3. Don't be afraid to take the lead on an idea
  4. Look into different ways of researching an idea

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