Visualization tool

Challenge

I’m a student at Africa Nazarene university pursuing Civil Engineering (B.E.) in India. While I was doing  research for my final year project on concrete innovation I found out that, concrete was a very mature  field. Already many research had being done on it, and the main problem was that it hard to find what is  done, what is to be done. There is more that 10000+ research paper on concrete. It is really hard to read  all the 10000+ papers. Even if we dive into sub-category of concrete, yet there is more than 2000+ paper  to read. Reading all this 2000+ paper would require months only to find what is to be done which not  quite efficient in today’s fast moving world. So to make the time required to find out what is to be done,  from months to just few minutes.

Selection

With help of visualization tool, I developed a website which help in finding what research is done before and what is  to be done. Researcher can easily find the information needed and what is done and what is to be done. And more  importantly within minutes instead of months

Application

While I was doing literature survey for my final year project (concrete innovation). I faced a serious problem with  data. The problem was not that I had less data; the problem was I had vast scattered data (10000+ research paper).  To read this data and extract information required would take months of reading. Concrete is a really vast and  mature field, already many research had been done on concrete in past. The main problem was to find out what is to  be done one had read all research paper not fully, but briefly which would take months. I wondered if there would be  website which provided us with sorted and filtered data required.

I decided I would develop this kind of website and started using the visualization tool to prepare a plan for  launching of this website. With tool of visualization, I prepared a plan and format for website. I had all data to  answer the question what is? And I used visualization tool to develop what if?  The final result the task which  required months before could be done in matter of minutes with ease and efficiency.  With help of visualization tool  I simplified the idea to help other non-technical investor to understand it and invest in it. To explain my website in  brief, concrete has seven characteristics (compressive strength, tensile strength, durability, w/c ratio, workability,  setting time, flexural strength) that further subdivided into four sub-category(by replacement of cement, fine  aggregate, coarse aggregate, admixtures) each category having detailed information about project and links to  research paper. In short making the process of months reducing it to few minutes, saving enormous time.

Insight and Approach

What I have learned from conducting exercise visualization tool work wonderfully from creating business idea to  convincing investor to invest in our project. Visualization tool help us innovate new idea. With visualization tool I  was able to convince investor to invest in our project by simplifying the idea with help of flow chart. I was able to  convince my college to invest in my project (for expense of website like domain charges, design firm charges).

With the help of visualization tool I can share insight of the project with simplicity. With help of feedback from the  user I can use it to improvise our service. Next time I would use the visualization activity as a starting point  for a series of design thinking activities

