Assignment1 Submission; Information Taxonomy

Assignment 1 Taxonomy Visualization

The “CUPS” are very common item in our life but it sometimes becomes very special for people who are coffee-holic as well as the taste of coffee! Myself is also in that case. I have chosen the “Cup” as my object and like to find out what kind of coffee cup people like to use!! This study would examine whether or not males or females would have a different preference for the choice of the cups. Ans it would answer my question “What type of cup people like to you when they drink coffee?”.

Cups

Characteristics

Before to research about the preference rate of cup, it is decided to analysis the 20 cups’ functional design, efficiency and aesthetic design. It would help to know about what kind of things would affect to the people’s choice of the cup. And then based on those data I would research the preference rate of cups.

- The size(height, diameter) and volume of the cup
- Material
- Thermal(HEAT) conduction rate
- Colour, pattern and design
- Preference Rate

Reference
reference1 (conduction rate)
reference2
reference3
reference4
reference5

Link to Flickr : all of 20 photos
Link to Delicious : all the links to chart, images and referencese

Visualisations

In order to answer the question “What type of cup people like to you when they drink coffee?”, I organized the process into 5 steps. And visualization are used to help the understanding of my research and analysis.

Step1 - Prepare the general information about my cups. (functional and design characteristics)
Step2 - Process the simple experimentation to find out heat conduction of each cup
Step3 - Analyse the result
Step4 - Do the survey
Step5 - Analysis the result

For the visualisation, “Many Eyes” is very powerful method. I tried to apply all different style of the chart to each data and find out the suitable chart for suitable data. Suitable cart means that the one should help viewer’s understanding easier over the others.

Step1 - Prepare the general information about my cups. (functional and design characteristics).
Firstly, the data of overall looks and kinds of cups are visualised as matrix Chart. This chart includes cups’ size, volume, colour, material. 4 different characteristics are in one chart! That’s why I chose the Matrix chart. This chart is very useful when the many different things have to be displayed together including the numbers and texts.
Chart 1

From this chart it can be easily find out that the cup which has largest volume and know what kind of cup it is. so according to the chart stainless steel cup has largest volume it is consisted with stainless steel and colour is silver. These data would be given to people who would participate my preference research.

Step2 - Process the simple experimentation to find out heat conduction of each cup
After overall data chart, I prepared the chart of the Heat conduction rate of cup. I researched about heat conduction and find out it varied with the material. There is a professional result but I also did simple experimentation by myself in order to find out each cup’s heat conduction. The method of experimentation is simple. 80’c of hot water is poured into each cup. Same amount of water is used for every cup. Then the temperature of the cup is measured after 10, 20 and 40 minutes. The cup which has lowest temperature has highest heat conduction.
Chart2

This line graph shows how the temperature changed after 10, 20 and 40 minutes. This kind of chart was used while I was recording the result. It is good see how they changed as time passed at the first glance. However, to make it easier, I made another graph which only show the result of temperature after 40 minutes.

Step3 - Analyse the result
The following graph shows the result. I chose the bar graph. Bar graph is very simple but this is the best to compare the many results.
Chart 3

This is the chart showing result of each cup. They are in order from highest to lowest temperature. From this experimentation, I could find out which cup can keep the hot coffee for the longer time than others. And also it allows me to have a data of heat conduction depend on materials.
Many eyes chart calculates the average temperature of 5 different materials. According to this chart, stainless steel can keep the hot temperature for longer than any others, then paper, ceramic, glass and plastic.

Stainless steel > paper > Ceramic > glass > plastic

But this result is different from professional result which I could find here ‘reference1’. It says ceramic is better than paper to keep the temperature hot. I think this different is because of other different condition such as the thickness of the objects.

Step4 - Do the survey
As all my basic researches and experimentation were done, I did a survey. I asked the question “What kind of cup like to use when you drink coffee?”. I showed my 20 photoes of cup to show the design, and gave the functional information chart so that they can compare the size, and also I informed people about the result of my heat conduction experimentation. 15 girls and 15 boys answered for me. They all said they like to have extremely hot coffee so, I guessed the Stainless steel cup, which can keep the hot temperature for longest, would get the first place. I thought it was good guess but little bit far off the mark. Following is the result of survey.
Chart4

This pie chart shows the percentage of each cup has been taken. Different to my guess, the cup got the first place is “ceramic cup” which has “Starbucks logo" on it. And then stainless steel cup got the second place.
Moreover, it was decided to consider the result by different gender.

Chart5

The tree map well shows the percentage of each instance has taken and also i could compare the two things by using the size and color.

First one shows the result of Male. Unlike the total result, male shows ther preference to the Stainless steel cup. Plastic Thermos also shows very low heat conduction at the experimentation. Boys normally intend to regard the “Efficency” and “size” as very important.

Second one shows result of female. But i left the color of the chart as boys’s so it can be compared. Light and white color means less or none of boys chosen that instance. We could see many differences between boys and girls. Girl has chosen their most favourable cup as “Starbucks cup” and “Fruit flower pattern coffee cup” followed. Many of other choices of cup also have pretty flower pattern or have some pretty picture on it. Stainless steel cup takes fifth place.

Step5 - Analysis the result
Through the survey i came to new insight about the choice of cups. People always try to make the efficient and convenience cup but that’s not the only thing. Design and Trends are also regarded as very important thing in our life. However, this kind of intention could be more easily found among the girls. According to the result of survey and their personal short answer (I asked them to write down the reason of the choice), they seems to take the product which has better efficiency, larger size and more convenient. Stainless steel cup was best for boys, because it could keep hot temperature for long time, has large volume, and also it can be easily taken outside with him. Meanwhile girls like to have cup of famous brand or pretty flower patterned cup, rather than ugly efficient cup. However, there are also few of boys who want to have Starbucks cup, so the in the total result shows that the Starbucks cup takes a first place followed by Stainless steel cup. some of them think that the famous brand product makes their life look cooler and feel better.

Taxonomy
From the research, analysis and new insights, I like to categorize my object "Cup" as followings;
-Volume -Material
-Thermal (Heat) conduction rate
-Design/Pattern
-Preference rate(gender)

The reason why I have chosen these categories is that I want to emphasize the difference intention of choic of cup between girls and boys. Above categories of top 4 are mostly affecting the my survey result..

The first idea I thought is "Sushi Train"reference3. People choose the most favourite "Sushi" from the train. They all have different tastes and their high and low prices are displayed as the color of the plate. Likely, people choose the most favourable "CUP" from my 20 cups. They all have different characteristics, and different color of their plates would show their heat conduction rate.

secondly I decided to use ladies and gentlemen's bathroom symbole to represent the different gender.reference4

Third draft

This is Third Draft. The round circle shapre are chosen at the beggining to represent the train of "Suchi Train". The volume of cup is shown by the most outside level of circle. Second level is the real "Cup train", The color of plates gradually changes from dark red to light red for showing their heat conduction. As the color darker and darker, the cup has high heat conduction so it can keep the hot temperature for long time. In the midle of the "Cup train", there are two quests of toilet symbols. Toilet symbols are the most common and representative things which oviously stands for female and male. Different view of two gender are shown in the head part. Also different proportion of view within one gender's head can be seen as different size of font.

Final

This is my final one. The biggest change from the earlier stage is the shape of "Cup Train". Thr round shape bit looked boring, so I tried to give change. And also the colors of plates are more varied because the color of the earlier stage, was looked all same for the last 6 plates. They were all red. I liked to make these color to be indentified more clearly. This gradient color are located at left bottom side to explain which color is the most hot and cool.