VISUALIZATION

By Laura Johnson

Challenge

I worked in a pharmaceutical laboratory that had a new drug that made it to the market  place after many, many years in research, clinical trials and production testing.  We had  just moved into a newly built building and there was much excitement and  overwhelming demand to know about the product and building.  The company’s  directors decided that it would be good to do an “Open House” with tours to inform the  public, interested journalists, professionals in the industry as well as many schools that  wanted to educate their students what a career in pharmaceuticals would be like.

I was tasked with heading up a team to prepare a tour of the research and development  laboratory.  The directors stressed that they wanted to get across what happens in the  laboratory and to explain and show what kind of science and cutting edge technology  we used.  This was a challenging task since the tours were short, with large groups  coming through.  The greatest part of challenge would be to convey the information so  that comprehension to all ages & levels of education was obtained but that those with  high and low understanding of science and technology were also engaged and not  bored.

Selection

I quickly came to realization that the visualization design tool would be a necessity in  our “What Is?” challenge to tackle, as described above. Our team agreed that  visualization, which is the use of charts, photographs, diagrams, handouts, etc, would  be a powerful design tool to incorporate.  With tours being too short to adequately  convey the science and technology we used on a daily basis in the laboratory, as well  as the description of scientific terms, processes and how the instruments work, it would  be daunting to go without this tool. The use of visuals, along with auditory part of the  tour, would be able to adequately spread information to address all levels of  understanding.

Application

Our group decided upon highlighting 3 important functions within the laboratory and  allotted each tour guide 3-4 minutes to explain these topics and leave time to answer a  few questions so that we did not go over the 15 minute time limit.  We broke up into mini  groups of 2 to brainstorm each function and answer the “What If?” of this challenge.   Each group obtained or created visuals along with description of terms used and came  back together to put complete a small handout.

Use of a cycle diagram gave way to quick understanding to all the overall processes  that happens with a drug upon entering to exiting our laboratory. A mind mapping visual  helped show what a R&D laboratory technologist does & the required skills needed to  do the job. Finally, a basic schematic and photograph of the most used instrument,  labeled with terms, helped visualize the inside workings of the machine and what it does  to the drug.

Insight

Upon returning from our mini groups of 2, we handed our information to the other mini  groups to critique and to add or edit any information.  This new insight helped give  another perspective to “What Wows?” and how to revise to make it easy to comprehend  for those with low science understanding yet challenge those with higher understanding  as well as educate all the students who wanted to learn about careers.

The other group members helped by suggesting more colors in the visuals to have it  stand out and easy to identify.   We used different colored paper to separate the 3  topics.  We also used a visual of how a car uses gasoline as comparison alongside the  instrument schematic to better get across comprehension of how the machine worked.   We added supplementary reading, terms and links to websites for those who wanted  further reading. From start to finish, the visualization design tool gave a handout that  helped those follow along visually with our auditory part of the tour as well as showing  the real life instruments in the lab.

Approach

We had a follow up meeting to discuss.  With the time allotted near the end of the tour  for questions from the tour members, we were better able to understand what needed  better clarification or what needed more information due to interest.  The tour members  would point and follow along to the visuals as well as use it to ask questions at the end,  which confirmed visualization was the tool for “What Works?” with this challenge.

In addition, we agreed that a mini questionnaire added to the end of the handout, to be  hand in anonymously at the end of the tours, could help give insight to what worked or  didn’t work to help curate for future tours.

