Isabelle Scheerer @isabellescheerer-blog1 - Tumblr Blog

Sprint 5

This blog post marks what I did during Sprint 5; the ever-approaching end of the semester.

For these past two weeks, I’ve been working heavily to implement a system or schedule that will help our non-profit, Read to Them, post more often and routinely throughout the year leading up to Read Aloud to a Child Week.

The first week of Sprint 5 was primarily based around research. I researched topics such as publicizing an event, recurring events, and social media data responses. The intent of my research was to determine the best timeframe for publicizing an event, and how often one needed to post media content in order to receive the optimum response levels.

The Findings

While researching, I stumbled upon an article that discussed the best time to start promoting your event, which they eagerly argued that the answer is as soon as possible. This article explains that “regardless of how big or reputable your event you need to advertise early,” further stating that one should start promoting an event at least 90-120 days in advance. To make things even simpler, they state that if you have a recurring event you should start advertising for the next event at the current event.

Another source breaks down the 4 weeks prior to an event, outlining the tasks that should be achieved each week. They recommend sending your contributors, participants, sponsors, and other interested parties a reminder about your upcoming event about 2 weeks from its date, and then again 4 days before. This allows for them to set their calendars with a reminder, while still giving them enough time to self-promote the event to their friends. The article also mentions that if someone plans to have a repeated event, they should start promoting in “real-time during the event to drum up awareness for the next occasion.”

Through my research, I have come to realize that there is no concrete or correct way to promote an event—that’s probably why our non-profit hasn’t figured out the best way already—but there are ways to increase your chances of response. There are specific times a person can post something on social media in order to get the most response and interest. In fact, the millennial generation is a direct example of this as the majority of young users post on Instagram during specific time-frames in order to attain the most likes.

My research reiterated something that I had already known: people are interested in things that seem concrete, organized, and real. People don’t participate in activities that are sprung on them, nor respond to things that seem unorganized and unreliable. Every article I researched further informed me that successful events are byproducts of consistency, organization, and reiteration.

The second portion of Sprint 5 consisted of producing the initial sketches of a calendar that would outline a timeline for social media postings and docket activities for the upcoming year’s event. This calendar’s goal is to help the non-profit organization contact authors, schools, and book stores in advance so that more people can participate in their event. Additionally, this calendar should allow Read to Them to promote their event throughout the year on social media, rather than anxiously posting about it 3 weeks before the event begins.

The calendar will take part in 2 sections: a 12-month outline and a weekly outline of the 2 months leading up to the event.

The 12-month outline will entail a brief overview of what tasks need to be done each month. Each month will include an approximation of how many posts need to be made on social media and when, reminders of when schools need to be contacted, when specific decisions such as the theme should be announced, and so on.

The weekly outline will entail a more detailed overview of the tasks that need to be completed. This calendar will include the 2-3 months leading up to the event at the end of October, as these months are the most busy and necessary for having a successful event. Some of the information included in this outline will be the same as the other calendar, such as how often posts should be made and reminders on when to contact people. However, it will also include the fine details such as what days of week posts should be made on, what kind of content should be included within each of those posts, and deadlines for submitting supplemental materials to participating schools.

My Thoughts

I think it was really important for me to spend a significant portion of this sprint doing research rather than simply jumping into creating a calendar. It has been immensely helpful to have a set of key reminders and timelines written down to frequently look back on.

I wasn’t shocked or taken by surprise on any of the research I found; it all made sense. Some things I hadn’t thought of, however, but they did seem valid. My research seemed to make me more confident about my organization and hierarchy of tasks awaiting completion.

By both researching useful tips and creating the calendars, I have somehow found the deeper reason for why I chose the calendar project, or how it fell into my lap, during this sprint. It has helped me to connect with my sense of organization, time-management, and particularity. I have always been very particular with what I did and how I did it, while being very organized and conscientious of time, which has allowed me to fairly easily determine what tasks need to be completed first. It has also made it easier to strategize how frequently social media posts should be made or how often a new graphic should be designed, as I understand the time it takes as well as the likelihood of it getting done.

Next Steps

Sprint 6 inches my group another 2-week cycle closer to the end of the project, which is increasingly getting more stressful and crunched on time.

Our non-profit organization has wanted many things from us during this semester, and all of which we have delivered upon. With this week’s schedule, my group plans to focus on creating the future calendars, a bookmark, post-event feedback, and a branding guide. Our sprint is definitely bold but very attainable as have split into individuals, or smalls groups, working on specific topics on interest.

Personally, I will be working on the production and finalization of the calendars. I aim to continue refining and adding more content into both outlines, so that it can be approved or tweaked by our non-profit in the coming week. My intent is to create calendars that are easy to understand, informative, and easily achieved. With that being said, the biggest struggle I face is creating a timeline that the non-profit will be able to manage and keep up with throughout the year as other events occur and take precedent.

Photographs and Sketches

Image 1; The month’s at-a-glance, includes a color-coded key

Text that coincides with Image 1; Brief overview of the month’s at-a-glance

Image 2; A detailed overview of tasks on the bracket for each month

lizclimo

Sprint #4

Sprint #4 was probably the most busy and demanding two weeks that my group and I have had to work through. This sprint housed the finalization period of everything we had previously been working on, and required mass communication emails between elementary schools, team members, and our leading non-profit organization in order for our project to finish in time for the actual Read Aloud to a Child Week event. It was the ultimate lead-up to the week we have been working towards for the last 10 weeks.

This sprint was also interesting for me personally as I was across the world in South Korea for the entirety of it. I do think it added a small amount of inconvenience, or more so, it required more time-management and communication skills in order to ensure my tasks for the sprint were getting done on time... that is, Eastern Standard Time rather than my 13 hours time zone ahead. However, being in another country during the crucial time was also quite beneficial as it gave me another environment to take inspiration from.

The Details

During this sprint, my main focus was on completing the reading trackers. These were to be included in the Read Aloud to a Child Week email as a printable file for the participating schools to use as a way to keep track of what students were participating. Hopefully, if this tracker were to be continuously used, it would also be able to show the increase or decrease of participation in the years to come.

Meanwhile, my other team members focused on creating the final logo design for Read Aloud to a Child Week, ensuring the Facebook page we collectively made was working as we hoped, and emailing the participating elementary schools with the needed information and material to succeed during the upcoming week.

The Process

Creating the reading trackers was fairly easy to draft early on due to the fact that I had a good vision of what I wanted them to look like. I think my vision was so clear on them because I spent nearly 3 full days in the beginning just researching what preexisting kid-friendly calendars and trackers looked like. By doing this, I got a very firm grip on what I thought would work and what wouldn’t.

My process of creating the trackers was a fairly fast one in the long scheme of things. I had a very firm grip on what I wanted to design, with a fluid ideation of what it should look like.

It took me only a day or two to create the base layer of the tracker, which contained the grid pattern for the student/class names and days of the week. Again, this was fairly simple due to the fact that I had already done an abundance of research on what trackers look like. The design I created also was the most logical and space-conscious that I could think of.

After that, I drafted a first sketch of the tracker to be able to show the non-profit and my classmates. This sketch more so showed the benefit of having a tracker set up in the manner that I created it. It also was a nice visual aid that elaborated on what color and pattern can do for a child-related product. At this stage, we were able to discuss what would and wouldn’t work for the tracker. It was here when we decided using stickers would not work the way we envisioned on such a small sheet of paper, which is why we then decided to allow the children to color in their corresponding box. By doing this, they will be able to choose their favorite color to use, they have a more hands-on element in the event, and it saves money for the non-profit.

After a lot of discussion and back-and-forth on color combinations and typeface pairings, my group was able to make a decision on the final color palette and typefaces to be used in the final iteration of the tracker. This step did not necessarily take a long time, but getting to a consensus definitely took a little bit of time and communication. We were able to reach a decision on the final two chosen typefaces relatively fast as many of the typefaces being discussed did not fit the kid-friendly and book-related project. The two that we chose were the most compatible and interesting, while still being easily read. On the other hand, the color palette was slightly harder to decide on as we started out with bright, bold colors which quickly switched to pastels. My group had trouble narrowing down from the color options we provided, which we later ended up using all of them as it contained the colors of the rainbow. We did spend a decent amount of time trying to create a pastel palette that was subtle yet bold. We wanted a pastel palette because we thought having neon or bold colors would make the tracker hard to read and hard to be written on clearly. That decision, I believe, saved us in the end as it would have been too overwhelming to have that many bright colors on a legal-sized paper.

Once the nitty-gritty details were decided upon, I started working on the final tracker design. This was fairly simple due to the fact that I had already sketched it many times at this point. I worked in Illustrator for the final design in order to get the cleanest line-work and illustration-to-text combination. The hardest part about this process was trying to determine the mathematics of the underlying grid pattern due to the fact that the rectangular spaces needed to both be big enough to write a student’s name and color in when the student had read. To solve this, I started playing around with the center lines and building in either direction as I went - shifting the grid to the left and right repeatedly until they were balanced. I then moved the name column over more since it obviously needed to be larger than the soon-to-be colored boxes.

The last thing I had to do, which also took me the longest time, was to create the top border. This was one of the most important aspects of the tracker for me, other than the tracker information. I felt like the design for the border needed to be based on this year’s theme, which is nature. I also felt as if the border design would essentially make or break a school’s interest in it, as that is the most fun and personable aspect of the design. I ultimately illustrated two scenes, which allowed for the two trackers to be different but closely related. The first tracker, for classroom use, showcased a landscape of grass and trees with a couple of falling leaves from the sky. The other tracker contained an abundance of falling leaves in the traditional Fall colors with a faint sky background. I felt like these designs embodied the year’s nature theme, gave a reminder of Fall since the event is held in October, and seemed very playful. I wanted these illustrations to feel relaxing and calm, and to remind children about the outdoors since they go out less and less as technology advances.

Final Thoughts & What I Learned

I am still awaiting feedback on whether or not the trackers were helpful. I hope to hear back from the participating schools in the next week or two, which I will then make revisions to the tracker for its use in the coming years.

I believe that designing the tracker was quite the learning experience since I had never created a calendar tracker from scratch, nor for someone else. The closest thing I had ever made was quick sketches of a “week at a glance” perspective of my ever-changing schedule.

I thoroughly enjoyed designing the tracker for this event. It gave me a sense of responsibility and tranquility over the last few weeks during the ideation and designing phases. It was a nice experience to have to think for someone else and to be in another person’s shoes. It was even more interesting having to create something for a person who doesn’t even know they need a particular thing yet. Additionally, I found it helpful to my practice and ideation to be forced to consider patterns, colors, typefaces, layouts, and negative spaces in a way that would cause my design to make-it-or-break-it. I like knowing that I was, hopefully, able to help at least one person feel more organized, accomplished, or ambitious during Read Aloud to a Child Week.

Photographs of the Process

Initial Sketch of Tracker - Ideation Process

Sketch of Tracker - More Concrete Breakdown of Space and Layout

Illustration for Banner of the Grade Tracker

Illustration for Banner of the Class Tracker

Final Tracker Design - Class Tracker

Final Tracker Design - Class Tracker (Additional Pages)

Final Tracker Design - Grade Tracker

Options & Prototype Testing

Options being Explored

Final Stages of Logo Design

Creation of Facebook Page banner

Finalization of Calendar Incentives

Preparation for Read Aloud to a Child Week

Postings on Facebook Page (& Social Media)

Individual Work

I have been helping two other students in the group work on the logo design for Read Aloud to a Child Week.

I have created sketches, iterations, and refinements over the last few weeks in order to help brainstorm new ideas that may be what the client is looking for.

I recently just made a couple of logos that combine the work of multiple student’s ideas, and create calming and simple designs based on the inspiration that has been provided to the group.

This week, I will be working diligently to ensure that a logo is chosen since the event is quickly approaching.

I will also continue refining or changing any logos that the client or group particularly like.

I have been creating the Calendar Incentives Tracker.

When I first came up with this idea, I began making sketches for it constantly, These sketches were forced to be considered and refined in order to look more structural.

Last week, the final design was created and seemingly approved by the client. Now that design is being looked over by the group to ensure no changes or alterations are needed.

I will be working hard this week to make sure that this calendar is completed, as the event is quickly approaching.

A header/banner is still needed on the incentives calendar. I will create this this week if no other member of my group does.

I will attached a few photos of the latest logo ideas and refinements, as well as the incentive calendar’s design.

Read Aloud to a Child Week - Incentive Calendar Tracker Design

Read Aloud to a Child Week - Potential Logo Options

Discovery Summary

Hi everyone, it’s been a long time since I last wrote on here.

Recently, I have been working with a non-profit called Read To Them, where we have been trying to discover ways to solve their problems within their organization. Over the next few months, I will be writing on here often, in order to record my thoughts, discoveries, and notes.

Organization: Read Aloud to a Child Week

People: Isabelle, Stephen H., Emma, Tyler, Stephen F., and Ivy

Problem Statement: When families prioritize reading with children it sets them up for a brighter future.

Outcomes:

Business Outcomes

Increase awareness

Increase participation

Increase discussion

Increase brand interaction

Customer Outcomes

Increase academic performance

Increase reading

Increase engagement

Increase family interaction

Individual Research Goals + Insights:

1. How do parents divide their time during the day?

In order to find the most information for this research goal, I created a 6-question survey that I shared through Facebook. These questions aimed to figure out what parents did during their day, how often they spent time with their children, and how impactful they thought they were in their children’s lives. Over the course of a few days, I received about 25 responses.

The survey showed that the majority of parents spend time with their children every day once they get off work. Most parents typically try to pick up their children from daycare or school, make dinner for their family, and eat with them on a daily basis. They show up to most of their children’s extracurricular activities, as long as their job allows it. The majority of parents believe they spend an adequate amount of time with their children, but all of them wish to be able to spend even more time with them. Ultimately, parents want to spend time with their children but sometimes are too busy to do so.

These findings allow researchers and the non-profit to understand that a parent’s goal is to be there for their child and to watch them succeed, but sometimes life gets in the way.

2. Are people more likely to read physical or online versions of text?

I did an extensive amount of research through the internet in order to find a substantial amount of information on this topic. All of my documented findings are from peer reviewed journals or accurate article publications.

The publications that I found suggest that print books continue to be the most read format of reading, with 67% of people having read one this year. It also suggests that there is a significant increase in people who have read audiobooks, increasing by about 4% in the last year. It should also be noted that there is no difference in the household income note educational level of people in regards to the type of book format they read.

I additionally asked a handful of people which they prefer, print books or digital ones. The majority of these people admitted that digital books are often easier to obtain and read at any location. However, they said they would ultimately prefer a print book due to the fact that it allows them to highlight and mark up the pages. They also mentioned that it is generally easier to concentrate on the text when it is a print book.

The images attached show charts and graphs based upon my self-made survey, and the research findings of people who read print books versus digital ones.

More to come soon.