Scrapbook page 60
Some little people I dropped into systems diagrams for FixMyStreet — a remarkable free software product/platform/project from the charity mySociety, where I worked for seven years. The diagrams were intended to help (predominantly non-technical) people running a local implementation of FixMyStreet understand the process that the (predominantly technical) platform implements. I think the figures shown here were drawn sometime around 2014 for a pilot project in the Philippines conducted, ahem, somewhat unskilfully by the World Bank. Hand-drawn cartoons would not have sat comfortably with the lines and boxes of the diagrams (not shown here), so I adopted a much more stylised approach than I would normally choose. I didn’t have very long to do these since they were just one aspect of the whole diagram, so necessity led to making the reuse of the basic shapes part of the figures' design. I had fun with the three-digit hands, and the theatrical thrown-out arm pose holding up pertinent objects (a mobile phone, a tablet-like smartphone, and a light bulb): the little people are going out of their way to communicate to the viewer what it is they are doing, and with what.