Table & Chart

Table and graph representing EXPENSES and FINANCIAL AID of Roger Williams University 2010-2011

Flow Charts

(not my finished version, just first take. the end product was on excel which I am working on adding to my blog) The first flow chart was designed to demonstrate the steps of ordering a book off Amazon.com. The steps go from entering the website, selecting the book, purchasing and reading it. Rectangle boxes represent a process, diamond represent decisions and the chart is terminated with an oval. I intended on being simple, yet thorough enough for the viewer to understand. Ideally, the amount of cognitive load should be as little as possible, to create the easiest amazon purchase.

I began the process by actually going to amazon.com, searching for a book and following all the necessary steps that need to be followed. By actually doing the act i was creating a chart for confirmed steps I would have never thought of. I already have an amazon account but I realized that others may not. The steps leading up to the question of having an account or not are the same, as are the steps after. The biggest problem I had was on excel creating the chart. It's just been awhile since i've used it and was a bit rusty. I learned easier ways to create a flow chart on excel and how many steps are actually necessary before the creation of the chart.

The second chart's purpose is to map out how to search online for credible information pertaining to cognitive load. The best way to do so (i think) is through google.com. The most important part is before the search, refining it to scholarly sources only. I really felt like this chart was a lot simpler. The steps are very straight forward, with little decision making. The biggest decision to be made is on choosing the right sources.

Marketing: Supply Chain

This was take one on my supply chain chart. The processes begins at the company headquarters, who purchase raw materials from the suppliers, who transport the materials to a manufacturing facility, who manufacture the goods and transport them to be packaged. When they are packaged they get transported to retailers, who sell the product to consumers. The consumers demand the product depending on the amount of purchases. I started the chart by placing the company headquarters at the top creating an exact circle cycle.

Shortly after creating the first cycle I realized all the ways i could better it, and increase the readability. So I moved the Company Headquarters to the center of the page, but followed pretty much the same cycle. After adding the Inventory Planning between stops allowed the reader to understand how uniform and repetitive it is. Following the idea of repetition, I created the delivery trucks to be exactly the same, therefor registering in the brain that the process occurs over, and over again. As I started to add some color to this diagram I realized i was not using it correctly, and frankly my OCD started to kick in so I began working on (what I hoped to be) my last chain.

Adding and changing the colors from cycle 2 to 3 created an easily followed marketing supply chain. The colors faded and chained throughout each step, showing the process of changing the raw materials to goods and packaging them. (Started with light blue, to dark blue, to brown, etc) The uniformity of the Inventory Planning was added by having the whole process be orange, with light shading. By coloring the pictures in the cycle the way I did, it lowered cognitive load by allowing the viewer to identify them easier. For example, brown packaged, green money/retailers. Looking back the visual now there is one thing I feel would improve it even more. To bring more attention to the start of the diagram (company headquarters) I would have added some sort of bright color accent behind the image. Like a yellow star or shading giving the audience no reason to look anywhere else to begin following the cycle,

How To Make a Spaghetti Dinner

In class we did an activity where in groups of four we mapped out a visual way to teach "how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich". After we finished we analyzed all the visuals and discussed what we would remove from it, and what we thought was most important. Using what we discussed in class I created my visual. I intended on achieving a non-verbal, visual representation of a demonstration (hot to make a spaghetti dinner). Using images and directional arrows I expressed the sauce being heated on a burner, while the spaghetti is poured into boiling water. The arrows expressed what step came next, and in one case what to do (the sauce going into the pot). Looking at my image now I would not have used the arrow from the jar to the pot, but instead tilted the jar into the pot. After finishing cooking the spaghetti, the bowl of a spaghetti dinner was made. The final image of both ingredients in the bowl was represented by the successful finish, and its eating time (person with giant fork). From doing this demonstration map of cooking I learned how important transitions are. Making a spaghetti dinner may seem so mundane and simple to us, because it is. However, without the proper directions of steps the process may not have a successful finish. While mapping out this visual I wanted to do it in the simplest way possible, easy enough for a non-english speaking audience to understand and proceed with the process of making a spaghetti dinner.