In collaboration with the social trend forecaster Future Foundation, the research partner on this study, HHRC Research Associate Swayne developed a new form of visual communication that enhances its presentation style to clients and helps deepen its quality of analysis and understanding of ideas. The challenge was how to communicate research material to a wider and more diverse audience. Her early research on the Future Foundation’s communication style revealed an organisation that relied on a standard visual diet of pie charts and line graphs but recognised the benefits that an alternative approach might bring. Swayne visited Boston to study the methods of Edward Tufte, the US graphic design authority, who advocates avoiding what he terms’ visual noise’ and ‘chart junk’.
The study then focused on creating a new, more human language of visualization, which was user tested with Future Foundation clients. Swayne took one of the think-tank’s top ten social trends - the world of ‘experience’- to explore her theories through a series of visuals which in turn, generated a toolbox of techniques applicable to other trends. The outcome centred not only on rethinking presentation formats, but - in a world of information overload and shortened attention spans - on deepening the quality of analysis and understanding through a visual approach. This case study demonstrates how carefully-structured user research can be harnessed in the context of the presentation process to enhance its impact and deepen the resulting level of understanding in diverse audiences.
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Visual communication, diverse audiences, visualization, presentation techniques, social trends
