Week 12: Outcome and Ambition | Project story, evaluation and conclusion
Weekly learning objectives
By the end of this week you should be able to:
- Make and deliver a presentation to evaluate the success of the industry set project brief.
- Communicate an evaluation of the industry set project outcome and reflect on the project evolution, strategy, innovation, user testing, positioning, final delivery and success at reaching the target audience.
- Design and refine your final project outcome.
Lecture introduction
For the final lecture we continue to present our creative practitioner interview series, offering insight into identifying, developing, project managing and completing an industry focused project.
This week the creative practitioners answer the following:
– How does project evaluation help you and your client / audience measure effectiveness of your final outcome?
FELD
All delivered, everybody’s happy…
Usually tick the job off the list and head onto the next one.
FELD think this should be the time to sit down with the people in the team and, perhaps, the client (depending on the client) and evaluate the project. Either in-depth or low-key depending on the project.
Maybe the process needs to be documented or fed back into the studio to make use of any new findings along the way, or discuss any lessons learned; what worked and what didn’t, why did/didn’t things work. What could be done better next time around.
Once a project is finished you’re not so deep and so focussed on the process so you can step back from it and look back over things with fresh eyes..
During the project the designers tend to only focus on that one thing, to be able to present or evaluate the work needs a wider viewpoint, the narrative rather than the technology involved. The design ‘facts’, and not just the outcome. Think more freely, evaluate what’s been done before you prepare the presentation because you might not be presenting to like-minded people, there could be someone who is completely unfamiliar with the project. Your presentation should be clear enough for any random person to understand.
Bring the bigger picture back in. If people fully understand the presentation then it’s done its job.
Accept & Proceed
Some clients will do an evaluation after a project. The’ll see which elements have been the most effective, which areas have performed better than expected, etc..
The success of a project can be measured in lots of different ways; website hits, social media views, or the more traditional rise or fall of sales. A&Ps evaluation of success is simply whether or not the client comes back for more.
Wouter
They evaluate at the end with either the whole team which was involved or just the project manager with the client. The more long-term work would have ongoing evaluations at set stages throughout rather than everything at the end in one go. Any feedback is shared with the whole team and if anything comes up which needs to be re-assessed, the client is made aware, if they aren’t already, and everything is dealt with openly and directly.
Some project evaluation comes from the consumer, rather than the client.
Edenspiekerman
Stijn van de Ven
Finds the evaluations with clients difficult. At the time a project is finished the results are often only seen after a long period and contacting a client again to evaluate seems too late.
Digital projects are easier to evaluate.
Luke Veerman
Feedback is something you need to seek out, whether from the client or other designers. You need to be aware of what the initial brief was -vs- what it is now, which might be years down the line from when it started, and have check-ins to make sure things are either still going along the right lines or that any findings which meant that the initial answer needed to change, are still what will be expected at the end.
These check-ins also act as a safety net, it’s easy to lose track over the course of a long project, of what direction things need to be in. If any changes have happened then you need to be sure they’re the right changes otherwise, once the project is over, you might be missing some elements or even way off the mark.
Keep your enthusiasm in check too, going down a path which is really exciting needs to still be in line with the client. If the blinkers are on then you’re likely wasting everyone’s time. Things need to look good and your project might be the best looking thing in the world, but if what you’re delivering doesn’t work, then it’s useless.
Make sure you’re still solving the problem.
Workshop Challenge
The Challenge
- Record a five minute presentation to analyse and evaluate the development of your chosen Industry Set project brief.
- Reflect on the project evolution, strategy, innovation, user testing, positioning and final delivery.
- Record your presentation in the format or media of your choice (for example, a Keynote slide presentation, video recording, podcast or website).
- Ensure you articulate the project’s relationship to its original research and strategic starting point.
The eight weeks spent on this project have brought mainly surprises and excitement.
The surprises range from the decision to choose a project around the subject of mental health in the first place, through to discovering my initial thoughts on what I’d be creating would be left behind, making the main outcome the production of an app.
The project changed direction a few times during the research. The original plan for print and public awareness simply didn’t fit in with the people it was trying to help.
I was looking forward to dramatic photography, direct – almost shocking headlines and copy, and posters-galore. But the app seemed to develop out of the research and feedback all by itself, as being the ideal answer to the original brief: raising the awareness of mental health issues within the emergency services.
The app, which was originally just there as a token, became the main focus.
At one point I was thinking of introducing sound to different areas within the app, but I decided to keep Oppo quiet. I didn’t want Oppo to have a voice and speak back to the user because this would stop any interactions being private.
This app allows officers to raise their own awareness of their own issues, to themselves, privately.
The feedback from the officers I interviewed has been really positive, they’ve suggested some different divisions to show the project to to get more interest.
Plans going forward:
I’m intending to enter the project into the live competition. The deadline for entries is April 2020 which gives extra time to study the outcome to date and see if any more improvements can be made.
I aim to get input from others who haven’t already been involved in the project, people with knowledge in different fields needed to develop the app, either in terms of methods of therapy, employment or the technology needed.
