Hierarchy
Running has helped me maintain sanity during this coronavirus lockdown.
Wow. I can’t believe that (1) I just wrote that, and (2) it’s true! I’ve never in my life been a runner. Or even a fast-moving person. (This is when my mom would tell you that I was even born weeks late.)
For some reason, last fall I decided to brush the digital dust off the Couch-to-5K app that had occupied space on my phone for years, buy new sneakers, and drag myself to the nearest track. After a couple months of intermittent walking and running per the app lady’s voice instructions, I was hooked. I ran my first 5K in November, and a few since then. Most have been virtual, and many have been cancelled due to the coronavirus.
You’d think cabin fever would lead to more frequent runs, but I’m struggling to find motivation to do anything at this point — Week Five of quarantine. Recent Berkshire weather isn’t helping. While I gleefully ran on Christmas morning in the falling snow, I cannot muster the same joy in late April.
The sun showed up yesterday, and so I forced myself to run. And it was good — until I pulled out my phone and attempted to grab my glasses to view my workout stats. My glasses weren’t there. At some point during my two-mile run, they bounced out of the little Spandex pocket that held them loosely (apparently) to my thigh. Calmly, I retraced my path — a straight shot during normal times, but a people-dodging, sidewalk/grass/road squiggly adventure lately.
As I fruitlessly searched my route, I envisioned ridiculously taping “Missing Glasses” flyers to telephone poles and street lights along Williams Street, and began the design process in my head.
I supposed it best to specify that eyeglasses were missing, versus a set of crystalware. If I included a loving description, would their return be more likely? Should I treat this like a ransom situation? Perhaps I needed to show a picture of me wearing my beloved frames — humiliating but humanizing.
I recently binged the entire run of Broad City. In one of the later episodes, a laundromat accidentally sends Abbi’s favorite sweatshirt home with another customer. Desperate for its return, she created “Missing Sweatshirt” flyers. Sort of…
Thanks to some poor design choices, Abbi becomes the focus of a Missing Person story and has to phone the news station to set the story straight:
Abbi: I-I'm just letting you know that this has been a huge mistake. I was never missing. I'm I-I'm fine. I'm good.
Newsperson: Damn it. Okay, we need another missing-girl story pronto. … But, uh, the flyers?
Abbi: It was for a sweatshirt, so —
Newsperson: What? That doesn't make any sense.
Abbi: Okay, i-it's a layout issue. So, I made the flyer for a missing sweatshirt from art school, and then now I see that it seems as though I was the missing one.
Newsperson: Huh, a layout issue. So I'm guessing you didn't finish art school.
Abbi: Okay, my concentration was in illustration, not graphic design. — [DIAL TONE] — Okay. Great.
Information hierarchy is so very important. It’s my first consideration when designing a piece of any size — how can I structure this content so that the most important information is immediately obvious with little to no user effort? Few projects excite me more than a redesign than introduces clear information hierarchy. (I can’t look at a confusing restaurant menu without fantasizing about its potential!) I’ll share some before/after examples — along with my Missing Glasses flyer, if I create it — in a later post.