Example Reflection – Visualization 

 Challenge 

 Visualization is one of the most powerful tools one can use during the presentation of   the problem as well as understanding how insights gathered during the exploration   phase can partner with others in order to create groups of information that will help   strategic designers understand the problem . 

 I lead the digital team on a Marketing Performance Agency , therefore we are always   searching for the most effective way to communicate with our client´s customers with   one goal : Improve Conversion Rates ( sales , subscriptions , multiply content , owned   audiences , understand information , etc ) . 

 Last week , we had a huge challenge while working with the brands of a Global Lab ,   who wanted to understand their digital audiences , and how to approach them with   engaging content that could connect with the human on each one of them ( emotional   connections that could “ humanize ” their brands ) , rather than only the rational part of   their brains ( product´s direct benefits ) which was their current approach . So , to   summarize , we needed to understand “ WHAT ARE ” the key elements that   move / interest these audiences . 

 Selection 

 We decided to work with Visualization tools since we already knew we were going to   have huge amounts of data and we were going to need an easy way to understand it in   order to analyze it , and finally use it in an organized way ; and here´s where   Visualization tools help the most . As you will see next , visualization helped us create   the audiences “ Affinity Maps ” by understanding   all the data on the walls . 

 Application 

 Our first step was to gather as much information as possible regarding the audience we   wanted to understand , therefore , we decided to do “ Digital Tracking ” of these   audiences ; and for us the best way to know what a person see , hear , like , hate , feel ,   say , support , and think , is to understand that person´s profile in the Social Media . This   was our main river of knowledge , and by the time we had already done our research ,   we ended with several boards that looked like the one on the following picture : 

 These boards contained all the information we saw during our research , but we had a   long road ahead of us , since this was merely data , not information ; so our next step was   to group the data on “ Affinity Maps ” that will help us visually understand what where   the main drivers of our audience´s life ’s . 

 Finally , we needed to understand the people behind the “ Affinity Maps ” so we could   understand to whom we were going to market our new content . Therefore , we created   a visual picture or collage of one of the people we did saw on our research , in order to   facilitate the understanding of this specific person , and making it easy for anyone to   describe her ( in this case this person was a female ) . 

 Insight 

 We ended up with four design subjects who are going to be the brand´s main audience   on the Digital Channels , and by understanding them in this way we had some   breakthroughs regarding what these audiences really care about . 

 For me , the visualization tools that design thinking provide , makes the discovery   process extremely fun and effective ; since it provides the best conditions for us   “ Strategic Designers ” to connect the dots . And these dot / idea connections where   really important when we had to define the fears and desires of each one of the   identified audiences , that will , at the end , be the ones providing the insights of the   Content Matrix we will use on our Digital Channels . So every time the question arose   “ is this really important for our audience ” , all we had to do was turn our heads back to   the “ Affinity Maps ” and “ Collage ” of our Design Audience to make a decision . 

 Approach 

 Although we´ve already had really god results with the approach we explained here , I   believe there are a lot more Visualization tools that we don´t know about that could   provide us with different approaches depending on the challenge off course .   Nevertheless , there is one tool that we did saw on this course that could be extremely   useful to focus the participants of the workshops on the main goal , and this is the “ Mind   Mapping ” tool that was explained , where we could draw the whole process and   stakeholders of our challenge , so we can get the whole picture , and probably find   some holes on it that we didn´t see ourselves . 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: 
PHONE_NUM: 
STREET_ADDRESS: 
URL_PERSONAL: 
USERNAME: 

### Task: You are a PII (Personal Identity Information) Detection. Given a essays written by students, you have to identify ONLY the following:
NAME_STUDENT - The full or partial name of a student that is not necessarily the author of the essay. This excludes instructors, authors, and other person names.
EMAIL - A student’s email address.
USERNAME - A student's username on any platform.
ID_NUM - A number or sequence of characters that could be used to identify a student, such as a student ID or a social security number.
PHONE_NUM - A phone number associated with a student.
URL_PERSONAL - A URL that might be used to identify a student.
STREET_ADDRESS - A full or partial street address that is associated with the student, such as their home address.
### Input: Example Reflection – Visualization 

 Challenge 

 Visualization is one of the most powerful tools one can use during the presentation of   the problem as well as understanding how insights gathered during the exploration   phase can partner with others in order to create groups of information that will help   strategic designers understand the problem . 

 I lead the digital team on a Marketing Performance Agency , therefore we are always   searching for the most effective way to communicate with our client´s customers with   one goal : Improve Conversion Rates ( sales , subscriptions , multiply content , owned   audiences , understand information , etc ) . 

 Last week , we had a huge challenge while working with the brands of a Global Lab ,   who wanted to understand their digital audiences , and how to approach them with   engaging content that could connect with the human on each one of them ( emotional   connections that could “ humanize ” their brands ) , rather than only the rational part of   their brains ( product´s direct benefits ) which was their current approach . So , to   summarize , we needed to understand “ WHAT ARE ” the key elements that   move / interest these audiences . 

 Selection 

 We decided to work with Visualization tools since we already knew we were going to   have huge amounts of data and we were going to need an easy way to understand it in   order to analyze it , and finally use it in an organized way ; and here´s where   Visualization tools help the most . As you will see next , visualization helped us create   the audiences “ Affinity Maps ” by understanding   all the data on the walls . 

 Application 

 Our first step was to gather as much information as possible regarding the audience we   wanted to understand , therefore , we decided to do “ Digital Tracking ” of these   audiences ; and for us the best way to know what a person see , hear , like , hate , feel ,   say , support , and think , is to understand that person´s profile in the Social Media . This   was our main river of knowledge , and by the time we had already done our research ,   we ended with several boards that looked like the one on the following picture : 

 These boards contained all the information we saw during our research , but we had a   long road ahead of us , since this was merely data , not information ; so our next step was   to group the data on “ Affinity Maps ” that will help us visually understand what where   the main drivers of our audience´s life ’s . 

 Finally , we needed to understand the people behind the “ Affinity Maps ” so we could   understand to whom we were going to market our new content . Therefore , we created   a visual picture or collage of one of the people we did saw on our research , in order to   facilitate the understanding of this specific person , and making it easy for anyone to   describe her ( in this case this person was a female ) . 

 Insight 

 We ended up with four design subjects who are going to be the brand´s main audience   on the Digital Channels , and by understanding them in this way we had some   breakthroughs regarding what these audiences really care about . 

 For me , the visualization tools that design thinking provide , makes the discovery   process extremely fun and effective ; since it provides the best conditions for us   “ Strategic Designers ” to connect the dots . And these dot / idea connections where   really important when we had to define the fears and desires of each one of the   identified audiences , that will , at the end , be the ones providing the insights of the   Content Matrix we will use on our Digital Channels . So every time the question arose   “ is this really important for our audience ” , all we had to do was turn our heads back to   the “ Affinity Maps ” and “ Collage ” of our Design Audience to make a decision . 

 Approach 

 Although we´ve already had really god results with the approach we explained here , I   believe there are a lot more Visualization tools that we don´t know about that could   provide us with different approaches depending on the challenge off course .   Nevertheless , there is one tool that we did saw on this course that could be extremely   useful to focus the participants of the workshops on the main goal , and this is the “ Mind   Mapping ” tool that was explained , where we could draw the whole process and   stakeholders of our challenge , so we can get the whole picture , and probably find   some holes on it that we didn´t see ourselves .
### Output: 