Visual note-taking | Ironhack Prework
My IronHack Journey — Exercise 1
So here I am, officially starting my IronHack Journey as a UX Designer. This is my very first step (at least a public one) of my adventure on the bootcamp. I’m super excited — and nervous, I’ve never written anything for the World Wide Web — and I’m sure it will be incredible to check it while diving into this UX universe and becoming more familiar with it.
And so it begins!
Ok! So long story short, that’s the first exercise of our prework for the school: to practice the visual note-taking methodology — which is basically taking notes in a more visual way. Doing this, we keep our brain busy — we are thinking both visually and with words — and we determine better what are the most important ideas and takeaways of a talking. Exciting, right?
To do so, the purpose was to sketch-note-take a TED Talk about Interface Design. At first I felt so insecure, especially after checking out the recommended book The Sketchnote Handbook by Mike Rohde. Some people think that if you have a graphic-design background you also have illustration-superpowers — but I definitely don’t. And since I have this thing that I want to do everything perfect (hello, it’s time to let it go!!), I felt very overwhelmed by the mission.
So I started to watch Rochelle King talking about The complex relationship between data and design in UX. I prepared the header before really starting to watch it — like recommended in the book — and I (surprisingly) had so much fun doing it!
That’s what I came up with:
What I felt after my first try:
- My brain was REALLY busy and I couldn’t think about anything else than the talk. Usually I easily lose focus while doing something like reading or watching TV. So the method totally works!
- It’s a bit hard to determine what you should really put on your sketch — I found myself with no more space on the paper!
- I still had to pause the video a few times to make some notes — I was still worried that it had to look good somehow.
- After refining it by the end of the video — like adding colours and a few shapes — I realised it was a really good sum up of the talk, I’d say it works better than trying to write everything down.
- After checking the result: I could do it better, I felt there was still a lot of text and I didn’t really filter what was more important.
- And my last thought: It’s exciting! I want to try it again!
Let’s do this (again)
And so I watched another talk, now from Adam Alter, who talks about Why our screens make us less happy.
This time I didn’t pause the video and I made more sketchy notes. After finishing the video I refined it, but this time on a new paper — like if that was my sketch on a live event and I’m making it better at home. And I really like the result! The structure is basically the same: it’s just some way more legible and colourful.
My final impressions:
- It totally works. My brain really kept completely focused on both of the talks and I think it’s a great way to absorb new content.
- There’s no need to be perfect! It’s not a master-piece, it just has to be understandable for yourself.
- The more you practice, the less you think while sketchnoting — it becomes more natural.
- It can really be fun!
What about you? Have you ever tried this methodology? I hope you have as much fun as I did :D
