Database Reference
In-Depth Information
4.1.1 THE AFFINITY DIAGRAM
The process of consolidation is easiest to see in building the Affinity Diagram, but it is
similar for all models. To build the Affinity, all interpretation session notes from all users
are printed on sticky notes in random order. Then the team arranges the notes in a facilit-
ated process that takes two or three days depending on the number of notes and the size
of the team. The notes are grouped on a wall to reveal distinctions relevant to the design
problem: each grouping describes a single issue or a point. Groups are kept small, four to
six notes in a group. When there is a lot of data on a point, this forces the team to find
moregroupsandthereforemoreissuesandmoreinsights.Groupsarenotpredefined—they
emerge from the data and are specific to the data. Finally, the groups are labeled with blue
stickynotestocharacterizethepointmadebythegroup.Thebluelabelsarethenorganized
into larger areas of interest under pink labels, and the pink labels are grouped under green
labels to show whole themes.
Building the Affinity forces the team members to deal with each specific observation
fromthefielddataandthinkaboutwhatittells themabouttheuser'sworld.Assigningthis
activity to one or even two people would be overwhelming, but building it as a team over
a few days is manageable and provides another immersion experience. Building the data is
already a bridge to the design process.
The affinity is built from the bottom up, grouping notes into themes one at a time. The
resultisasinglehierarchicalstructurethattellsthestoryoftheissuesacrossthewholeuser
population when read from the top down. The final affinity is easy to read and interpret—a
designercansimplyreadthroughitlikeastory,startingwithagreenandthenreadingdown
through the pinks and blues, sampling individual notes to get a full picture of the data. If
done right, a design team can understand all that matters for the market simply by reading
the labels. The affinity structure simplifies the complexity of the data without losing the
rich detail which is still available in the individual notes.
The Affinity Diagram is a good example of effective communication design. It presents
a
meaningful structure
,ourfirstprincipleofcommunicationdesign.Thehierarchicalstruc-
tureisfamiliartoeveryoneandnaturallychunkslotsofdataintosmallergroupings;group-
ings represent coherent themes and contain yet smaller chunks, each of which can be con-
sumed one at a time. The resulting structure is easy to read, rendering the complexity of
field data consumable.
