Sketch #8

chart #1
chart #2
chart #3

chart#4
chart#5
Table

This was my favorite sketch that we have done just because it was pretty easy once you decided what you were doing. Finding something with statistics was hard just because I couldnt really get a big enough data set. I found this information on collegeboard so its probably outdated but its still worked. I decided to do the most popular majors that RWU has to offer because I was stressfully picking classes before I did this sketch. Once I had the information the table came easily and then I literally just chose the entire data set and clicked charts. I think the thing that I liked least about this sketch was the limitations of excel. There isnt much you can do property wise to try and choose the layout and colors of the graph. This was annoying just because I would have rather positioned the majors on the bottom differently because I find them hard to read. I decided to do 5 different charts to represent my data. The first chart I did was called an area chart. I don't think this is a very good representation of the data. You cannot easily see where each percentage is and it is hard to read the curve of the graph. The second chart I chose was a line chart. This chart again was not a great way to represent the data. you cannot really easily see where the major matches up with the line and there is too much going on on the page. This is definitely increasing the cognitive load. The next graph is a bar graph. I think that this is a good way to represent the data because you can easily see the separation between the each of the majors and where they match to the percentage. My fourth graph was a scatter plot. This was not the best way to show the data because there is too much going on and it is hard to match up the information. My 5th and final chart was a pie chart. This was the best representation of the data. The information is easy to depict and you can clearly see where the percentage are relating to one another. Overall I enjoyed this assignment.

Flow Charts

Both of these flow charts were hard to do because they were almost too easy. There arnt to many questions someone would need to ask themselves in order to do this. Also I infered that the person already knew what book they were looking for when they went onto amazon to order it which I guess may not have been the case. The google flow chart asked more questions then the amazon flow chart because on google scholar their are three drop down menus to narrow your search. However once you provide the information for those and hit search it pretty much stops there because then the person just needs to choose the article that best suits them. The same goes for amazon. The only real questions are paperback or hard cover and new or used. Once you have satisfied those requirements you just choose the book from the best supplier or price. I think that the hardest part about this is that we cannot infer what the person is like that is doing the searching. I guess looking back I could have chosen to write about searching for a specific book and how I would go about choosing however to just show someone how to initially do the search that requires a lot less information then that. This was definietly not my favorite drawing that we've done.

#6 Information Graphic Paper

I chose to create an information graphic on which ski wax to choose when your waxing your skis. I broke it down into snow type and temperature. These are the most important factors when it comes to which wax is right. Generally when you try to pick a wax you have to follow different arrows and lines which are confusing. More information than nessecary is needed to find the type of wax as well. For instance there are 3 types of snow options; newly fallen snow, compact snow, and fine or "old" snow. Fine snow however carries the exact same results as new snow because it is loose and not tight to the ground. I decided that since it was the same I did not need to represent it. It just increases the cognitive load because you have to look into information that you have already been shown. There are also many variations of air humidity listed. I have been ski racing since I have 8 and have never taken into account any humidity factors into waxing. Generally during the winter humidity is dry, unless it is snowing, and all waxes take this into consideration, even ones used for powder days. Overall the hardest part of this was deciding what I should take out and what I should leave. However once I started looking into the cognitive load and seeing how confusing following most of the steps were it was easier to see where I got off track and eliminate those parts.

How to make spaghetti!

I was babysitting when I did this and one of the little boys, William, is 2. So the whole time I was drawing he would tell me what everything in the picture was. It was interesting to get the perspective of someone who not only doesnt read but also probably doesnt know too much about making spaghetti. He knew that the pot was a pot and the sauce was sauce but he wasnt sold on te spaghetti. The first time I drew the pot he knew what it was but then the rest of the times if I drew it a little different he would ask what it was. Also when I was trying to show the boiling water by drawing steam he asked what it was so I told him steam and he told me no its smoke. That made me think about a non english speaking person looking at this because i just assumed they would be able to make the same inferences that I made. So even if it did resemble smoke a little bit it would still get the point across that it was steam. However you cannot assume this. For all I know they could think I meant smoke and that could be confusing. I wanted to use a generic sauce (Ragu) so that I could draw the lable. I figured someone could in fact recognize a lable that they commonly see at the store.
Over all I enjoyed this project. I think it was interesting to see how someone elses brain works. Especially since I got to gain the perspective of a 2 year old.