During the group project, our group was assigned with the task of researching the Amnesty Internation organisation. For this, we split the tasks between those in our group, the idea behind this was to see if the information provided on their website and different social media platforms is consistent and delivered the same message throughout. My specific role within my group was to research the organisations website. I suggested this as the other two people in the group know their way around different social media platforms, whereas I find myself lacking in navigating around certain ones which is something I will have to rectify for future projects. I looked at their website, another looked at their social media and the final person took the role of looking at competitor organisations that have the same concept as Amnesty International (human rights) to see if their information was clearer and more informative than our own.
While our group was very diligent in focusing on their own assigned tasks, there was very little discussion between the three of us, so we did not know each other’s perspective on what they had found so far. We then decided to put all our findings on Padlet and have a discussion, as this progressed it became more comfortable to speak to one another and we ended up agreeing and disagreeing on various points.
What I found when looking at the organisation website is that there is a large amount of information, while this is incredibly detailed and informative it also comes across as overwhelming for someone new to the website. The colour scheme chosen throughout is the same as what they use on their social media posts to highlight certain information, so the consistency is evident. Looking at the structure of each page it comes across as very organised and neat but is very generic. They also lack a lot of accessibility options, even to the point they list all their known problems yet have not fixed the issues.
When reflecting on what happened at the start of the group project, I feel like separating the tasks between different people was still the more efficient way to handle the project, but the lack of communication between us played a big part in each of us feeling comfortable to voice our own opinions and ask each other questions. This only started to ease at the end of our project as we started our group discussion, so we ended up further behind the other groups as they had much better communication from the beginning, so they were more in sync with each other. As working with strangers is unavoidable in graphic design, this experience has shown me how important communication within a group is and how it can affect collaboration. In the future, I will aim to create a more comfortable environment within my group so me and the others will feel at ease to speak with one another and share opinions which will lead to a more successful outcome.
Referencing –
Amnesty International (2024) Non Government Organisation, Human Rights.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/ [Accessed 04 /11/2024].
Logo (2020) Amnesty International Logo [Photograph].
https://www.amnesty.org.au/branding-logos-for-activists/ [Accessed 04/11/2024].
Human Rights Watch (2024) Non Government Organisation, Human Rights.
https://www.hrw.org/ [Accessed 04 /11/2024].