Visual Communication Learning Through Peer Design Critiques: Engineering Communication Across Divisions

Abstract

Abstract Visual Communication Learning through Peer Design Critiques: Engineering Communication Across Divisions Engineering communication by necessity concerns visual communication. As educators, we hopeto instill students with a sense that good visual communication must be thoughtfully designed tohelp readers make meaning of data. Such visual design for readers requires our students tobecome metacognitive of their own experience as consumers of visual communication. Yet oftenengineering students are not prompted to think about or design visual data communication untilthey must present their own data, typically as part of a senior capstone project. Our students’ lackof experience leaves them without a solid foundation for critical thought about figures, and thusscant preparation to learn from the experience of creating and refining them. If capstones are tobe an opportunity to learn about visual communication rather than simply perform it, students arein need of a swift means to gain perspective on user interactions with figures, starting with theirown.Highly subjective fields such as fine art and graphic design have long had an answer to this needto learn within open-ended yet user-centric visual modes of communication: the group critique,or simply, the “crit”. Though details vary, the “crit” is often a group or class activity wherein onestudent artist presents his or her work and briefly introduces it; the others articulate and discusstheir opinions and viewer experience. Thus the “crit”, if facilitated constructively, provides ameaningful active and social learning opportunity for both the presenter (who gains userexperience data about his or her design) and the critiquers (who develop their aestheticawareness and articulation by reflecting and communicating their experience viewing thedesign).We adapted the concept of the “crit” to a workshop within a bioengineering capstone course inorder to help students to sharpen their awareness of reader experience of figure design, andempower them to improve their own visual communication within their capstone reports. In ourworkshop, students were first guided to articulate opinions and critiques of a series of publishedfigures. Visual design principles (drawn from aesthetics, data visualization design, and our ownreactions to readings of previous capstones) were contextualized within the students’ reactions.The students then broke into small groups in order to apply the newly-uncovered principles in aconstructive critique of each other’s figures. The group reconvened to share interestingobservations with the whole class.We assessed the workshop both by soliciting student feedback through a survey and byevaluating and comparing figures from a sample of student participant capstones to a controlsample from the previous year. We found that students were positively disposed toward theworkshop and found it useful, which matched our qualitative observations in class. We alsofound that completing the workshop was correlated with a reduction in unnecessary filler figures,as well as an improvement in figure professionality and visual storytelling.