You have been given a task. You are required to produce a graphics response that engages with a specific audience. Your response should consider the context and environment in which you aim for it to be delivered. You will need to identify this as part of your initial concept proposal.
You should aim to identify, analyse and use existing means of distributions in order to select an appropriate method of communication. Y
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| Background / Considerations |
What do you want to say? How do you intend to say it? What language would be appropriate?
Will the content be communicated primarily through type or image? If it is both what is the relationship between the two?
What are you aiming to achieve? Are you directing your audience to a website, encouraging them to attend an event? Will it be interactive or encouraging them to change their lifestyle?
A limited colour pallet, two colours plus stock, will allow for reproduction of your designs across a range of media.
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The subject that we were asked to research into was 10,000 steps, referring to the 10,000 steps that we are supposed to walk everyday to help contribute to good health.
As a group we chose to research separately, and meet up at a later date to discuss any research we thought may suggest ideas for our proposal.
The first idea that popped into my head was creating a regime that people could interact with in order to do their 10,000 steps a day. Online I found this article on a blog about walking 10,000 steps a day.
'When you join Fitbit, the default goal we set for each member is the magical number of 10,000 steps a day (you can also choose to customize your goal). And while this may not be the first time you’ve heard that goal, it might be more meaningful, and motivating, to understand its origins.
The Japanese first started using the 10,000 steps a day number, as part of a marketing campaign! (to help sell pedometers). Since that initial campaign however, medical authorities around the world have agreed that 10,000 is a healthy number to aim for. The American Heart Association uses the 10,000 steps metric as a guideline to follow for improving health and decreasing risk of heart disease, the number one killer of men and women in America.
10,000 steps a day is a rough equivalent to the Surgeon General’s recommendation to accumulate 30 minutes of activity most days of the week. It should be enough to reduce your risk for disease and help you lead a longer, healthier life. The benefits are many: lower BMI, reduced waist size, increased energy, and less risk for Type II diabetes and heart disease. In fact, a recent study of the 10,000 steps a daymethod reported conclusive health benefits.
10,000 steps daily is approximately 5 miles. Unless you have a very active lifestyle or profession, you probably don’t reach 10,000 steps on a given day without putting some effort into your activity. This could be a lifestyle change such as walking to work, or the addition of an exercise routine to your day.
Another reason to do it? For most people, it’s convenient, free and simple to do with just a little change to your daily routine. '
The article puts forth not only how walking 10,000 steps a day may improve anyones lifestyle, and reject numerous health issues, but it also shows the equivalent distance to 10,000 steps, 5 miles.
I then went to the fit bit official website to take a look at their program and ethos, what they were offering to their audience, and who they were.
'What is Fitbit?'
'Fitbit is dedicated to helping people lead healthier, more active lives. We take a common sense approach to fitness, and believe that the key is to make it easier for consumers to be more active, eat smarter, and get enough sleep — in short, that small changes to your daily routine can add up to big results. To that end, we aim to create innovative, inspiring products and online services that harness the power of new technologies to make people more aware of their everyday activities and motivate them to do more.' website
Fit bit are a company that helps those who may feel like they do not have enough time to exercise, make small changes to their daily routine to make up the activity lost. Those who use fit bit are able to track their progress online and via app. Promotes easy use and ability to look at the results directly. When certain exercise levels are surpassed members of fit bit can also achieve badges as a reward for their success.
This conjured up an idea that you could have a regime that shows how far you have walked in terms of location to location.
for example I saw the badge below on the website, Life time distance, is the distance that people have walked or ran since signing up with fit bit. Some distances achieved go up to the range of 5000.
for example the distance between London and California is 5456 miles, I thought it could be quite inspiring if you set distance challenges, and members are able to track how far they are along the route, and set other challenges of longer and shorter distances. Where people from all over the globe can join in as a community, and are able to see who has walked the furthest etc.
I also liked how on fit bit members did not have to plug any numbers in order journeys. Their step/distance counts were updated by syncing digital pedometers to their computers/phones, which then updated their scores automatically.
I also found an article that shows how the audience who would use this type of program are benefited. The audience that I would assume that woud benefit from Fit bit are those such as office workers and business men/women who work long hours. Below shows how the 10,000 steps a day rule and 3 extra classes of exercise can help increase a companies revenue. An attractive concept for both employee's and company owners.
'Employees who walk 10,000 steps a day and work out in the gym three times a week tend to be more productive, an Australian clinical trial has found.
Managers, take note: Using a method to measure productivity in terms of money value, the study found that making 10,000 steps a day and sweating up in the gym three times a week yield $2500 worth of productivity annually to the company.
The Body-Brain Performance Institute, in conjunction with Swinburne University's Brain Sciences Institute, subjected 40 employees in April to a walking study which is aimed at finding possible links between walking and mental alertness, as well as response to stress.
The 40 employees came from SAP Melbourne, a global software company. Each was given a pedometer and assigned to a group.
The control group was given the task of achieving 10,000 steps a day. The second group also had to make 10,000 steps, but in addition undergo three resistance training sessions each week designed by the researchers.
The study says an average office worker walks 2000 to 3000 steps a day.
Over the following eight weeks, the employees' measurable components of brain function, including the ability to plan, remember, simulate future scenarios and make decisions, were measured using a neuropsychological test battery developed by the Swinburne institute.
Employees' alertness and energy levels were also measured, along with their levels of anger and stress.
The research showed a clear link between vigorous physical activity, increased brain function and reduced stress levels at work.
Using Harvard University's Productivity Questionnaire to translate the physical and cognitive improvement into a dollar value, the trial concluded that each member of the exercise group had contributed an additional $2500 worth of productivity annually to the company.
Professor Paul Taylor, who led the research, said the findings confirmed previous studies which showed vigorous exercise significantly increases happiness, productivity and cognition, and employers should be harnessing the advantages of exercise more in the workplace.
Don't be surprised if the human resources office asks you: How many steps do you make in a day, and how frequent are you at the gym?' website
Another motivating program that can be found online is by Pruhealth. The program is called 'Walk the tube'. During this program, it seems again those with busy lives who live in the London area, are asked to walk between tube stations in order to increase there count of the steps they take each day. The website/app has calculate the amount of steps an average person would take between a number of tube stations, allowing app owners to see by how much they can improve their number of steps and their health.
'That might seem like a lot, but a simple change like walking between tube stops can help you to improve your fitness, burn calories and protect you against certain diseases. We've calculated that the average person will take 99 steps to walk between Cannon Street and Monument stations and 2,438 steps from King's Cross to Farringdon.'
Pruhealth have made this great program into a map, where app holders are able to see how many steps are between each tube station, indicating that tube travellers do not have to walk the whole route but can get off or on the tube the tube a 1 or two stations before their desired location to improve their health.
Holders of the app commented not on only how clear and easy it was to use the map, but it also had great use during the olympics when many londoners took to the streets, when the tubes were crowded with tourists.
Pruhealth
I have also found a great video info graphic posted by 'Workfit' which promotes a campaign they are running to encourage people to walk 10,000 steps a day. Video communication is now more successful than ever, as they can be passed from person to person via social networking sites, within minutes they could have been viewed by hundreds of people.
Through searching I also discovered that Nike have an app in which you can use to 'track, share and compare your runs and connect to the world's largest running community.'
I found that when reading about the concept of the nike app, It would have some great elements that would work with the program ran by fit bit.
Here are some of the elements that Nike+ running community offer:
This screen refers to the idea I discussed earlier, Tracking and running set distances via GPS.
Although to some this may seem a good idea, I find that many ignore posts like these on facebook, therefore this section of the app would not be used much.
I found this would be a very successful idea, Although i do not have scientific evidence, I find that from personal experience having music that makes you want to exercise or gets you in the zone, is great motivation.
Gives the ability to surpass your own persona app, to improve their could be an option to challenge others personal best as well.
Example of branding I found for a 10,000 steps a day campaign that follows the required, 2 colours plus stock.
I had also thought at the start of research that doing some kind of walking challenge for charity could be a good idea, however members of the group had already worked with charity and had found it difficult previously and so were wanting to find something new.
I do however think that the idea of a walking app could be furthered by raising money for charity. for example I had spoken earlier about different distances that people could be challenged to walk, for example, to California, London, Paris etc. It could be a good idea if a certain amount of money is given to charity every time someone meets a certain goal, for example 50pence for 50 miles and £1 for 100 miles.
I have noticed with this research that once I had become involved with apps and website programs I was very interested. I will take these ideas with me tomorrow for our group meeting and see what feedback I receive.
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