rough chapter sketch for meeting

I attended the inaugural Sydney UX book Club this past week (thanks to all that came and those that organised) and it has brought sketching to the forefront of my mind for the rest of the week. There have a been a number of great articles and books about how making sketches and drawings help us to think (e.g Bill Buxton’s Sketching User Experiences, Dan Brown’s Communicating Design). Sketching with pen and paper for me is the first place I start nearly any shared conversation, but the spatial aspect of this kind of conversation is also an aspect that I find important in such “visual thinking”.

That’s why affinity mapping type exercises are integral to the thinking and sketching process I have been using to discover and synthesis the structure and layers of my PhD thesis this last two years. Here are some earlier shots of “arranging” the PhD. I use this method to capture the various areas that need to be covered by writing down everything I can think of on an Index card, either over a few sessions or as they come out (Thanks Tim, thanks Agile).

first chapter structure

Periodically I sort them and pull out all the double ups. Having them out on a card and up on the board means I don’t worry about having missed anything. I can see the big picture, but still just grab one card at a time and concentrate on working on that. I can also mix and match and regroup easily.

chapter structure revised

key themes and forces in the thesis