Diagram(a)s Backstage workshops took place in Barcelona and London in 2009 and were aimed to test for the first time a design tool. For these workshops were necessary to apply social methods and to have control and experimental groups of participants. Advanced students and professionals from the design discipline were engaged in these workshops.
Test through a practical task the level of success and efficiency of a design tool.
Two kinds of content (themes) to be analysed and diagrammed: A) related with scientific/technical themes, and B) related to socio/historical themes.
The workshops followed a three-stage structure:
1) Analysis: to assimilate content, separating the information into its constituent elements ideas, or principles.
2) Organisation: to give structure or character to the constituent elements ideas, or principles of the given content. Stage considered the most important.
3) Diagramming: to visualise the constituent elements ideas, or principles of the given content, and produce the final outcomes.
16 participants from different design communication fields were engaged in these workshops, including graphic and information designers, architectures and web designers.
Theoretical presentation which introduced key concepts needed for completing the task of the workshop. Then participants were divided into two groups: 1) Control group: the reference group used to measure the results; 2) Experimental group: participants who did apply the design tool to complete their tasks. The facilitator gave to each participant a booklet with a design brief to be responded (theme A or B).
Participants from the first workshop (Barcelona) had 2 hours and 30 minutes to complete the three stages, while participants from the second one (London) had a fixed structure of 45 minutes per stage with 15, 10 and 5-minute breaks in between.
Results obtained were highly positive as they made possible to measure the level of success of the design tool. Further evaluations of the same tool were done following the findings and comments obtained after these workshops.