Key words from the brief:
- Reflect on how you’ve developed your thinking about your audience
- At what points in your creative process, and what you’ve learnt from them
Questions
How did you initially define your audience?
- I was lucky in that I was working for a larger programme of work delivering learning outcomes to a large corporate client. The audience was given to me.
- Prior to starting the work I’d been actively involved in interviewing approx. 70 leaders and managers from across the business (I personally interviewed 8 people), so I had a really good understanding of the audience and their particular challenges.
Who actually engaged with the project in the end?
- My immediate team and extended team – Approx. 10 -people
- The senior manager sponsoring the work
- The IT operations team (40-people)
- The people nominated for the programme (50-people)
- The candidates (selected from the nominees) that formed the first learning cohort (24-people)
What did you take from student or other critiques of your work?
- Feedback and learnings that I used to improve the quality and effectiveness of the work.
- Collaborating with individuals and customers to deliver ‘working’ product and responding to client needs are some of the key objectives set out in the Agile Manifesto (2001)
What kinds of questions did you find useful in gathering feedback?
- What is it you like/don’t like about this?
- How does this make you feel?
- What do you think this means?
- How would you do things differently?
- If you had a magic wand…
How would you approach an audience-related project differently next time?
- I’d use much the same approach.
- Start with a detailed understanding of who they are and the issues/challenges they face.
- Develop solutions and gain feedback rapidly
- Test continually
- Be brave, fail fast and learn fast
What do you think it’s important to know or do?
- Be prepared to steps into other people’s shoes and listen to other points of view.
- Where possible make data/evidence based decisions.
- If something feels wrong it probably is.
What went well
- This project was exciting because it crossed the boundary between my day job and my illustration.
- The team I was working with had clear objectives and created a safe space for everyone to experiment and express themselves.
- I was able to create a distinct visual style that I feel comfortable with and I can develop.
- It was wonderful to see how visual metaphors can change the conversation, allow people to think and see in a different way.
What I would do differently
- I spent far too much time on this assignment and could have drawn a line sooner.
- I could have user other techniques to get closer to the audience such as personas, but it didn’t feel necessary for this project.
References
Kent, B et al (2001) The Agile Manifesto At: https://agilemanifesto.org/ (Accessed: 30/08/21)
Illustration 