Former Community – We Moved
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Infographics: sharing, previews, & feedack
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Thank you Matthew!
Thoughts?
Definitely looks cleaner this way, this makes my notes on Lucio's outline look sloppy :).
Gotta say though, the infographic design process is a collaborative effort for good reason. And, it's hard to brainstorm any new ideas when the designer hands back what I made (seemingly) without any new additions.
I'm only doing my best here, so for me, the perspective of a real professional is always valued.
That said, my thoughts at a first glance are:
- Good call on the traffic light symbols: My version used squares. And, admittedly, it was a rough outline, so I didn't think much of it at the time. But, seeing it as circles now definitely helps with comprehension.
A couple of other thoughts:
- Better communication for the reader's comprehension: The arrows in Lucio's sketch that said "disempowering" and "re-empowering action" explain the meaning of the waves. So, if they're going to remove the arrows on the graph itself, they need to communicate the meanings of the "dip" and "up" another way.
- Inconsistent sizing: The size of the green needs to be a little bigger to be congruent with the sizing of the orange and red. Right now, the green looks less like a "two" and more like a "0.5". (Remember, the line/arrow in the middle represents neutral—that's where the zero is set.)
Something feels off/missing about this design. I'm going to give it some more thought before sharing any further feedback.
Thank you, Ali!
Yes, you're right, the designer barely adds any creative input.
I think the red, orange, green should indicate addition or subtraction of power. Income statement for analogy to accounting.
The graph seems to indicate the amount of power. More like the balance sheet.
I think that may be confusing.
Maybe green should refer to value-adding power moves like "thank you".
I think a direct analogy with a bank account or stack of coins may be more intuitive.
Or a water tank. Value-taking power moves poke holes. Re-empowering counter-moves block holes. Value-adding moves add water.
The amount of water represents your status in a given environment. Maybe you have other water tanks in other social circles. And your general power is the combination of all these water tanks.
Quote from Matthew Whitewood on August 12, 2021, 7:53 amI think the red, orange, green should indicate addition or subtraction of power. Income statement for analogy to accounting.
The graph seems to indicate the amount of power. More like the balance sheet.
I think that may be confusing.
Maybe green should refer to value-adding power moves like "thank you".
I think a direct analogy with a bank account or stack of coins may be more intuitive.
Or a water tank. Value-taking power moves poke holes. Re-empowering counter-moves block holes. Value-adding moves add water.
The amount of water represents your status in a given environment. Maybe you have other water tanks in other social circles. And your general power is the combination of all these water tanks.
I'm not sure I follow, Matthew.
That's what the curves do.
They count both addition/subtraction and total level.
If the curve goes lower, that's a subtraction (call it "individual power move").
But if you started from an overall strong position, then it's still in the positive (total).
Same for recovering.
The deeper into red, the bigger the power loss.
The better actions you can take the more you go back up (single instance addition). But where you end up depended on where you started and how power-taking the previous move was (total)
If we describe the strength of power moves as red, orange, green, I think it's confusing to use the same colours to describe the amount of power a person has.
Let's say the amount of power is the status of a person.
Status
Green - Positive status
Orange - Slightly negative status
Red - Negative status
Power Moves - Movement of Status
Green - Slightly negative
Orange - Moderately negative
Red - Very negative
Then it's challenging to assign a positive move like re-empowering with a colour.
If the curve goes lower, that's a subtraction (call it "individual power move").
But if you started from an overall strong position, then it's still in the positive (total).
From this, I interpret the vertical axis as the power balance, a.k.a. status.
So the colours represent the amount of status a person has.
However, the colours in the legend refer to the addition/subtraction of status.
But it's the up & down movement of the graph that conveys the addition/subtraction and not really the colours.
For example, you can go up & down in status in the green zone in the graph a little bit (green power moves).
You can also go up & down in the red zone a little bit (green power moves).
Quote from Matthew Whitewood on August 12, 2021, 7:53 amI think the red, orange, green should indicate addition or subtraction of power. Income statement for analogy to accounting.
This just gave me an idea.
We do draw a lot of parallels to the financial world when creating our terminologies here. But, what if an income tracker is exactly what we need for this concept?
You can have a different power tracker for each relationship. And, the bottom total will give a good estimate of not only your power level in that relationship, but also the overall health of the relationship (e.g. how much value-taking/value-adding behavior is going on, etc.).
The "Power In" category could also be for the (green) empowering behavior that goes above the neutral arrow:
And, for clarity, the corresponding numbers below the the arrow (i.e. below zero) would be negative—which further underlines the aim of the traffic light concept.
If you have any thoughts, feel free to share!
Edit:
Adding a couple of notes:
- The final total can be matched against the traffic light: In the example above, the final total was -8, which means that relationship is in the red. (This comparison may not be possible in every case, but so far it looks good.)
- The starting overall balance can be adjusted: for cases when you're starting the relationship at an overall strong position, the first line in the "Overall Balance" category can reflect that.
In the example above, the first line could've been left empty with only the overall balance square filled in at positive 3. And, that would have impacted the total balance to reflect that (more accurate) power disparity. (After all, we don't all always start every relationship at zero.)
The negative numbers make a lot of sense to me!
Now we can have
- Green power moves in the red region - a good deal with a generally value-taking individual
- Red power moves in the green region - a huge conflict with a good friend
If I understand this correctly, the vertical axis represents your power.
And the horizontal axis represents time.
Acquaintances
I think this graph represents the relationship with a typical acquaintance.
You don't really gain or lose any power over time.
Collaborative Relationships
For collaborative relationships, I think there should be a general upward trend with up & down motions.
Both people gain power over time with the occasional conflict.
Value-Taking Relationships
For value-taking relationships, there is a net downward trend.
In most interactions, you have to defend against power moves.
Overall
Personally, I find the graph visualisation a bit unintuitive.
It does make sense logically though.
But I need quite a bit of time to think it through.
