- In this section we'll begin to take a look at how we
can break our research down into simple graphic organizers.
Graphic organizers are a great tool
to help you analyze your research.
They help you to get beyond your initial thoughts,
and look deeper into what you've learned.
When I say graphic organizer what I'm talking about
here is essentially a glorified chart,
such as the one shown here.
The chart or a graphic organizer arranges your
research findings into specific categories.
These categories then help you
to see more of your research at once,
and they make it much easier to look for
relationships, patterns, and unique attributes.
Let's consider an example,
say we're part of a design team and we've been hired
to rebrand a convenience store which is
rapidly losing business to its competitors.
As part of our research, we repeatedly visit both
the client's store and the competing stores
over the course of a few weeks.
During that time we noticed the store's different layouts,
advertisements, signage and environment.
We watch how people shop, we take photographs,
and we speak with customers
about their shopping experience,
and we've ended up with a lot of great information,
but it's encoded in pictures, notes,
sketches, and even in our own heads.
Let's try using the graphic organizer called POEMS.
POEMS is an acronym that stands for people,
objects, environment, messages, and services.
Let's take each of those categories
and break them into a chart like this.
We can use this chart to begin
populating our research findings.
Now let's think back to our initial goal.
Remember, we're trying to improve our
client's store over that of the competition.
How could we use this organizer to help us?
What if we used POEMS to compare and contrast
each of the competing stores against our client's store?
This will allow us to see what
other stores are doing better,
and worse than our client's store.
The chart might look something like this.
For instance, Store A has more seating,
so customers can stop and eat,
appealing photography in its advertisements,
softer and more welcoming lighting, a friendly staff,
good directive signage, and so on.
Let's say the only connection we noticed in our
client's store was a friendly staff,
so we've discovered some other options
to consider improving in our
client's store to be more competitive.
The relationships are easy to spot this way right?
Another thing we can do is use this organizer
to begin to analyze cause and effect,
and from that we can start to assume
possible solutions and/or outcomes.
For instance, let's say that in Store B
we noticed shopping carts, clear signage,
attractive photographs, and a marketing campaign
centered on the concept of healthy eating.
We also noticed people leaving the store
with larger bags of groceries.
From these observations we might begin
to predict that having shopping carts,
paired with nice signage, and a strong marketing campaign,
could encourage more in store shopping.
This is what we mean by finding relationships
and analyzing your data to look for solutions.
Had we not made this chart we could of missed
connecting those two dots together,
and lost a potentially good opportunity.
POEMS is just one of the many organizers
that you can use depending on your project.
Another useful organizer is the AEIOU graphic organizer,
this stands for activities, environments,
interactions, objects, and users.
Another organizer is POSTA, this one stands for people,
objects, services, time, and activity.
POSTA has the addition of time,
which can be especially helpful in certain cases,
particularly when you're dealing with a service
or experience such as the length of time
someone spends in a convenience store.
If you find that none of these organizers work for
your needs feel free to modify them as necessary,
or simply create your own
based on the context of your research.