Content Sorting

This is a quick activity to get me to sort through raw data that is based on the periodic table. My knowledge of the periodic table goes as far as double award science back in GCSE days, so when I was given this exercise I knew it would jog my memory of the words and terms that I knew back in Chemistry. Basically this task is a simple data sort, where I had to take the information below and sort it into categories- I have included my process below.

The raw data

My first data sort-

When I actually looked back at the data again I realised I left out a WHOLE section! So back to the spreadsheet I went…

My second data sort- the RIGHT data sort

What did I learn from this exercise?

That designers actually have to complete tasks that aren’t related to the the physical act of designing, just like sorting through this content. In order to complete and solve design problems and come up with solutions you need to decide what is relevant and also I need to understand the problem and what I seeing asked. This content task taught me to READ carefully and to make logical decisions when sorting the information into groups. This task seemed easy at first but I still managed to make mistakes because I wasn’t reading and looking at the data as carefully as I should have been! Grouping the items together was quite therapeutic despite the information being in a continuous vertical line (which did make this tricky).

This data sort helped in jogging my memory about the periodic table and it will hopefully help me to decipher what information I need and want to include with in my elements project.