Users: The users are high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors, ages 15-18 that should all be at, or about at grade reading level. Some of these terms, such as promotion, selling, pricing, and marketing will be words that students have heard and used before. The terms marketing information management, channel management, market planning, and product/service management will probably be terms that are new to students.
Why Will These Work?: When reading this section, I really focused on using the ACE model as guidance. ACE stands for analyze, create, and evaluate (Lohr, 2008, pg. 73). The graphic that I chose to create represents the 7 Core Functions of Marketing that include Marketing Information Management, Channel Management, Promotion, Selling, Pricing, Market Planning, and Product Service Management (Farese, Kimbrell, & Woloszyk, 2012, pp 8-9). I began by analyzing the 7 functions that make up marketing and brainstormed an analogy to compare them to. Analyzing really helped me to “identify the purpose of the instructional visual” and I began with the end in mind (Lohr, 2008, pg. 75). I concluded that 7 functions of marketing are like an umbrella. All are a necessary parts to make up marketing as a whole. If a function is missing, the marketing process will not work properly, just as if a part of an umbrella is broken or there is a hole in the canopy, it will not keep rain out. When creating this graphic, I wanted to make it simple, yet effective. I also wanted it to be more unique than the average graphic organizer. I decided to break the umbrella canopy into 7 sections to represent the 7 functions of marketing. Each section is a different color to represent that each part is its own function and uniquely relates to marketing as a whole.
I used the vector tool to free form draw each section, copied and pasted and then transformed, flipping horizontally so that it was identical on the opposite side. In addition, I used the text tool and drew lines that allowed me to attach the text to the path drawn so that it would align inside the umbrella (Lohr, 2008, pg. 84).
User Test: I had my friend look at the original visual (which didn’t have the word marketing on the handle). The word marketing was originally on top of the umbrella canopy. After the user test, my friend mentioned that placing the word on top of the umbrella made it look like I was trying to protect the functions from the word marketing (as an umbrella protects a person from the rain). This was definitely not my intention.
Changes: During the evaluation portion, I made changes to the image to clearly display that marketing is connected to the 7 functions, not against them. I had the idea to make the word a part of the handle. This displays that the 7 functions make up marketing and without marketing, the 7 functions are nothing more than independent terms. This goes back to my umbrella analogy. If the is no handle and nothing to hold the umbrella together, it loses its function.
References:
Farese, L.S., Kimbrell, G., & Woloszyk C.A. (2012). Marketing essentials. New York, NY: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill.
Lohr, L. (2008). Creating graphics for learning and performance (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Ally Gilin: EDTECH Learning Log 