How can levels of service be visually described?

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Mark

There are times when several choices are available for consideration, and the choices can be made along various criteria. Different options like service level, cost, features can all conspire to make a clear choice difficult. In those instances a visual representation can be very helpful.

Here’s a great example from Mercer, one of the world’s largest HR consulting firms. We explored several options for the Workforce Insight Network, or Mercer WIN. This software product is accessible online and offers a variety of helpful reports to talent management professionals worldwide. Our first challenge was to study the existing model and understand the various buyer opportunities represented:

As is often the case with a model forced into a shape; the four sides are not equally important or even necessary. Who is the audience? What do they want to do? How can this product help them do it more efficiently and accurately? One early approach was to organize Mercer’s products according to several key things talent managers needed to accomplish.

Choices organized by three consumer needs

We considered how audiences might want to purchase the product at various analytical levels. The ‘Data Analysis Power Curve’ on the left roughly correlates with how users can access the data. It begins with a basic reports and proceeds through correlations and predictive causation models.

This option uses the 'Data Analysis Power Curve' to organize options

We chose at a solution that placed the buyer, or Talent Manager, at the front and center, in control of all the features that might be needed as a company grows in data requirements. This allowed us to build the story from the center out in the final production.

Once the conceptual direction is chosen, we work to create a detailed or ‘blueprint’ drawing that has the correct visuals and draft copy positioned. This guides final illustration production. Here is the updated model with more detail.

The final version looked like this, and was updated with an animated version and different languages. The product levels are at left, the major benefits are at the top on the big screens, and the data analysis capabilities are at the right side.

As an additional benefit, related products can be discussed within the visual context by bringing then in as additional support segments surrounding the talent manager.

Bring meaning to your numbers

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Mark

Let’s say you have carefully calculated data to convey in helping your audience make a choice. If your audience is not full of statisticians, you may want to recast the presentation in terms of THEIR interests.

Mercer is one of the world’s largest HR consulting firms, offering a wide variety of services. One service area relates to “global mobility” – moving managers and executives from country to country. It’s surprisingly complicated – and expensive.

I was recently invited to help describe how cost-of-living indices are calculated for global expatriates. Because there are variations in philosophy, calculation comparisons, and regional pricing, the overall descriptions can be confusing and hard to follow. Mercer needed Visual Translations’ help in explaining 17 pages of single-spaced type that described six different (yet related) cost-of-living methodologies.

Index calculations

Obviously, that’s a lot of granular detail. As a first cut in the visualization process, we created a decision tree to make it easier for sales prospects in the audience to understand their choices. It turned out that making that first “sort” made the other pieces easier to identify.

The first question for an employer is whether you assume either that (a) all expatriates regardless of where they live, spend their money the same way; or (b) expatriates’ country of origin influences their purchasing patterns. For example, do Americans spend more on transportation and entertainment, while Italians spend more on clothes and food?

Do people spend money in exactly the same way everywhere?

Do people spend money differently by region?

Once a user resolves the first question, three more options are presented based on the mathematical comparisons between store prices for a set basket of goods. The second question has to do with the shopping habits of the expatriate and corresponding generosity of the allowance.

Calculation assumptions yield different compensation results.

Finally, reasons for choosing one index over another are described to help viewers make the best selection for THEIR circumstances.

Here is a link to the complete online animation of cost of living adjustment alternatives.

Support employee understanding by making process changes visible

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Mark

The interesting thing about process changes is that they don’t stick if they’re ignored. What’s more, a business won’t realize any value for their technical and strategic investments if they haven’t factored in the talent required for success.

If you want to get employees to rally behind a change the first step is to make sure they understand why change is needed. Adults are skeptical learners and quick to dismiss anything that isn’t seen to have a big “what’s in it for me?” payoff.

As an example, take a look at the following MS Visio flowchart that demonstrates how a project is to be opened under a new process. Part of the visual challenge is that the viewer must decode the colors, read the sideways swim lane titles, and follow the small arrows in and out of the action. The other challenge is that it’s pretty boring, right?

Original process depiction

A revised version was requested to better identify the participants and what they’re expected to do under the new approach. This sketch suggests one path with participants coming and going as required. All copy is to be right-reading and immediately associated with the action step required.

A suggested direction for simplifying who does what

We developed a final version that resided on their intranet and had links associated at the right time with the few forms that were needed. This enabled employees to continue doing their jobs with a minimal disruption from the process changes that accompanied new technology.

New process render

Support a superb process with good case studies

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Mark

After investing time and money in developing a process for delivering services to clients, it pays to continue supporting success through marketing case stories. A good demonstration of how the process delivered results helps prospects understand their opportunities.

Hoffman Construction follows a seven-phase build process in the their work with clients. The major steps as seen in their PPT overview are below. A presenter can click on any of the items at the top to spend more time on the details involved in that phase.

This is the build process navigation that appears at the top of PPT slides

The results of following the process can be seen in the success of various building projects like The Indigo condominiums in Portland, Oregon. A bi-fold case story was developed to demonstrate how the Hoffman approach benefitted the client. While the front and back describe the specific property, the inner spread focuses on the high-efficiency features that help a building save water. The inner spread can be separately used in presentations to new clients when water conservation is of interest.

Front page describes challenges faced

Setting up the challenges on the front places a favorable emphasis on the consultative process taken to a successful construction project. Hoffman’s expertise is showcased in the center spread, and the excellent results achieved for the building’s owner conclude this case story.

By focusing on the unique skills and experience brought to the project, there is less of an opportunity for buyers to overlook skill in the competitive bidding process for new construction.

The inner spread describes water-saving features in a high-performance building

Results achieved

Develop non-linear presentations to facilitate understanding

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Mark

Most conversations are non-linear, so why limit your important client presentations to a series of cascading ‘Power Points’?

A non-linear approach to process presentation will allow a speaker to follow the inquiries of audience members. In the example below, Hoffman Construction visually demonstrates the major phases in the build process. Clicking on any of the images jumps to that phase.

Once on a building phase page (below), a navigation bar along the top allows a quick return to the overall build process.

Presenters have the opportunity to skim the surface of a topic at an executive level or fill in more specific details for a project team.

Images within a build phase sequence reinforce the services being performed, such as the rigorous review process shown below.

Build concensus for process change

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Mark

Companies invest a lot in their technology. Often overlooked is the more important role individual employees have in embracing (or rejecting) the process change that often accompanies new technology investments.

For Hoffman Construction, a visual approach enabled leadership to convey the crucial benefits that would follow a series of technology investments. This led to greater employee understanding and acceptance of change.

Some of the original presentation slides focused on benefits as items around the representative investment in SharePoint, mobile technologies, ProLog, and TEMs. While accurate, this image lacked the ability to inspire audiences to change. The challenges and benefits are not readily apparent.

The presentation is recast as before and after scenes on building floors, where technology components enable positive change.

Record keeping improvements through better technology

Technology investments improve performance

The Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Mark

If you’re ever stumped for an approach to explaining a new idea, this is a decent place to start looking for ideas. The clever graphic below suggests solution segments in the color coding.

Roll over the titles for an example

Francesco Franchi | Visual Storytelling & Journalism

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Mark

Here’s a good German interview with an Italian information graphic designer. He’s the art director for IL- Intelligence in Lifestyle and has received many awards for his work, linked below for your perusal.

Francesco Franchi: On Visual Storytelling and New Languages in Journalism from Gestalten on Vimeo.

Link to additional work by Francesco.

Even though I can't read Italian, I'm really drawn to these images

Visual fatigue vs. Vermont police

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Mark

When asked to proofread something again and again, eventually we stop seeing what we already believe to be there. In other words, the very obvious mistake can hide in plain sight and come back to haunt us. We’ve all been there!

A recent and humorous example caught my attention last week, when the Vermont police were found to be driving squad cars with a hidden epithet. Prison inmates make the decals affixed to up to 30 patrol cars, and they had hidden a pig in the artwork files without anyone noticing. You can probably spot it quicker than the police who look at the decals everyday.

"Spot" the piggy

Personally, I think the pig is a lot cuter than the three strange animals to the left. What the heck are those things supposed to be?

Source: Vermont inmates slip pig into police car decal

New research on the efficiency of visual communications

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Mark

Research from Dartmouth and Georgia State suggests graphs are more likely to change stubborn minds than text alone. The research looked into why, when the facts prove reality, people will still reject the truth when it differs from their tightly held beliefs. Can graphs help change their minds? Yes!

The editor at Fast Company goes on to suggest that if you are willing to lie and represent a falsehood visually people will believe that as well. True, but not the intent of the originally researchers. Below is one of their experimental charts and the results of sharing it with a given audience.

Is the trend going up or not?

Graphs are more likely than text to change the minds of people with strong beliefs.

Fast Company: Infographics can save morons from themselves.

Here’s the research conclusion below, and the original paper.

Conclusion
This paper makes two principal contributions to research on motivated reasoning and political misperceptions. First, we show that affirming self-worth can reduce misperceptions among respondents who are most likely to resist acknowledging uncomfortable facts about an issue. Second, we show that it is possible to provide subjects with graphical information that improves the accuracy of their factual beliefs. These results help us understand why individuals resist discordant claims and the means by which they do so.

These results have differing normative implications. On the one hand, they highlight the exciting possibility that graphical corrections can reduce misperceptions more effectively than text. However, the results underscore the psychological factors that make misperceptions so difficult to reduce. Among motivated subgroups, receiving the affirmation treatment (but not any corrective information) leads to better performance on factual questions across three studies. This result suggests that many of these respondents know the correct answers but were unwilling or unable to acknowledge that fact if they were not affirmed. In other words, self-affirmation may be important not because it makes people more open to new information, but because it allows them to accept dissonant information they already possess but would otherwise reject. These effects were largest relative to the effect of the graph treatment in our Iraq experiment

(Study 1) but were also significant in our studies of perceptions about job growth under President Obama (Study 2) and global temperature change (Study 3).