🗓️ Before Class: Teacher Prep
- Gather/set out: Sample survey results or a short case-study handout (teacher-provided), Persona template (paper or Google Doc).
- Pull up today's slide deck (see 🖥️ Slide Deck below) so it's ready to project.
🧑🏫 Substitute Teacher Guide
A scripted, step-by-step runsheet for today's class -- hand this to anyone covering the room who doesn't know the daily routine.
- Day 1: 📋 Open Substitute Guide
- Day 2: 📋 Open Substitute Guide
🎯 Essential Question
- How do professional designers research a target audience before designing anything?
📈 Learning Objectives
By the end of this lesson (2 Days), students will be able to:
- Distinguish between primary research (surveys, interviews) and secondary research (existing data, competitor analysis).
- Build a simple audience persona (a fictional "typical user") from a short data set.
- Explain why designing for 'everyone' usually means designing well for no one.
📐 Standards Alignment
CDOS (Career Development & Occupational Studies)
- CDOS 2 — Integrated Learning -- students will demonstrate how academic knowledge and skills are applied in the workplace and other settings.
- CDOS 3a — Universal Foundation Skills -- basic literacy, communication, and problem-solving skills required for a career.
ACP (Adobe Certified Professional) Photoshop Exam Objectives
- ACP 1.1 — Identify the purpose, audience, and audience needs for preparing images.
🎓 Study this for the ACP exam: Domain 1: Working in the Design Industry
📚 Key Vocabulary
- Primary Research
- Original research you collect yourself, like a survey or interview.
- Secondary Research
- Research that already exists, like published statistics or competitor examples.
- Persona
- A fictional profile representing a real segment of an audience, used to guide design decisions.'
- Target Audience
- The specific group a design is created to reach and persuade.
🧰 Materials & Tools
- Sample survey results or a short case-study handout (teacher-provided)
- Persona template (paper or Google Doc)
🧠 Do Now (Warm-Up)
If you had to design a poster that would appeal to "everyone in the world," what would it have to look like? Is that actually possible?
📋 Main Workshop / Lesson Sequence
This lesson spans 2 Days. Suggested pacing:
| Day | Focus | Plan |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Research Methods | Do Now (5 min). Mini-lesson (15 min): primary vs. secondary research, with real examples of each. Guided analysis (10 min): as a class, analyze one sample data set together. Independent/pair analysis (15 min): analyze a second sample data set in pairs. |
| Day 2 | Building a Persona | Do Now (5 min): what's the difference between primary and secondary research? Mini-lesson (8 min): what makes a strong persona (name, age, goals, frustrations, design preferences). Independent build (22 min): build a persona from the sample data. Present to a partner (10 min): explain what it would mean for a design aimed at that persona. |
✅ Assessment & Exit Ticket
Persona document scored with a rubric: grounded in the actual data provided, specific rather than generic.
Exit Ticket: Name one design decision that would change depending on which persona you were designing for.
📊 Pull up the anonymous Class Check-In for students to fill out before they go.
🧩 Differentiation & Accommodations
English Language Learners: model every step live, then check in one-on-one; provide translated materials and vocabulary support as needed. Students with IEPs: apply the accommodations and modifications listed in each student's plan (examples include extended time, graphic organizers, speech-to-text tools, chunked instructions, and visual schedules). Students with attention-related needs: break tasks into short, checklist-driven steps and provide brief movement or focus breaks. Students ready for a challenge: take on a leadership role critiquing peers' work, extend the project with a second iteration, or research how today's skill is used professionally in the field.