Visualizing stories from research
by Jason LiI was cleaning out my desk (= hard drive) this week and found a research artifact we created for the Charmr project that was never fleshed out in time for the release. So I took some time to touch it up.
Before proceeding, keep in mind that:
- Diabetics’ motivation ebbs over time because diabetes is incurable.
The diagram tells a story of different people that we interviewed. The widening/splitting of the line represents different groups of people going their separate ways (so to speak).
The visual style was inspired by C.J. Minard’s Napoleon’s march map.
This entry was posted
on Monday, November 5th, 2007 at 11:36 am and is filed under Deliverables, Graphic Design, User Research.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
This post is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
November 5th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Interesting use of Minard’s visualization technique. I question the split (fork in the road) however. It looks like you are assuming that all people that switch to a pump are more motivated than those who don’t. A diabetes pump is just one treatment option for diabetics. And it’s one that’s not even possible for many people with Type 2 diabetes.
Also, some people use no pump and stay motivated to closely monitor their diet and exercise regimen while others on a pump lose motivation and consider the pump a substitute for good disease management.
Lastly, the name motivation “cycle” doesn’t really seem appropriate since the events don’t seem to repeat themselves.
November 5th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Alan: Thanks for the feedback. Your comments are correct, so let me try to explain why I diagrammed what I did.
For the major fork, I was trying to convey the idea that some of the people we spoke to experienced a surge in motivation either before, as or after switching to the pump. It is, I agree, a problem that I had to over-simplify the diagram a little bit to convey this idea. Additionally, much of our research (and our final concept) was targetted towards pump users.
As for the “cycle,” it’s still in the title because I couldn’t figure out a way of showing it in the diagram (without it being too confusing). As you probably know, the ups and downs of motivation repeat themselves — people go on the pump, sometimes they go off of it. Also, it would be very bleak and somewhat inaccurate if it wasn’t a cycle and that the overall story was just a downward curve
So in summary: the diagram isn’t perfect, and it may need more detail, but in this version, I sacrificed precision for readability.
November 6th, 2007 at 2:24 am
Hi Jason:
I really like the chart. I was wondering whether you have applied it in technology related environments (although one could probably argue that the diabetic application is some kind of technology)? I do a lot of work in telecommunication & media and can imagine that a picture like this could provide great insight into technolgy adaption by different customer segments. So for example broadband penetration: one could look over time what are the specific events (drivers, barriers, applications) that increase or decrease motivation for different customer groups. Using this picture one should that be able to use that to (allmost like in surfing) create the right environment to trigger the next wave of motivation (and adaptation). Comparing the cycles or patterns between segments (e.g. high usage vs. low usage)should also allow for inter-groups learnings and maybe even inter-group triggers / behavioral influence. I guess to a certain extend this is close to a product life cycle (although more individual and dynamic right? Good stuff…
Sven
November 6th, 2007 at 4:50 am
Interesting diagram. There are a group of people with diabetes (small thankfully) who seem to lose all motivation and barely treat the condition. I’ve seen this anecdotally on blogs (where friends and relatives refer to them).
This group doesn’t bother checking blood glucose levels, often fakes results on logbooks, and tends to have higher A1C values. I heard of values around 9.5 and 11 in two cases I recall. And unfortunately that group tends to have bad complications relatively early in life.
I don’t see that group represented here.
There’s also a group (small) that adopts technology such as a pump or CGMS and then decides that it’s too much for them. They generally return to multiple daily injections.
If you ever need to interview people do let me know. I know a group of folks who are motivated pump users and several of them have had diabetes for over 50 years. Which makes me, with a 35- year track record, seem like a novice!
November 18th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Bernard: Thanks for the comments. If I ever update this diagram, I’ll be sure to add in those edits.
Sven: No I haven’t, and I wish I could use it in those contexts. It was be incredibly interesting to map those trends out, though I’m also wary that it could fast become a very messy graph that doesn’t tell any stories at all (so to speak). Also, for this diabetics graph, I put it together after I had more or less figured it out all (instead of analyzing a graph created from data points, which is the more scientific/conventional approach). I would love to have the data to try it the other way round, though I wonder how much massaging I would need to do to the data in order to create a legible story on a graph