Case story
Visual Mapping as a Design Tool
In this case story, project workers used a visual mapping process to create a community plan for using research findings. The process can be used to plan and map a research project.
The Galiwin’ku Healthy Lifestyle Program is a broad community-based intervention that started as a research project. The Menzies School of Health Research negotiated with the community to collect baseline data about diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Researchers worked with local health workers to conduct a health screening, which included a questionnaire about lifestyle. Questions were asked about food, exercise and so on.
The screening and questionnaire got people thinking. Community representatives went to the researchers to talk about what the community wanted from the research – a program that could promote a healthy lifestyle in a holistic way using the local cultural framework and values.
When the planning process started, members from a community working group, Elaine Maypilama, Dorothy Bepuka, Joanne Garnggulkpuy, and Dorothy Yunggirringa and other community members met with the outside researchers Julie Brimblecombe and Maria Scarlett. They talked about the best ways to reach different groups of people through community structures and agencies, and talked about what activities were already going on in the community. It was a vision with many parts that came from local and cultural knowledge and the planning needed to be recorded in a way that suited and was meaningful to everyone.
Visual Mapping - a useful tool for checking and planning
Maria Scarlett talks about the mapping process she used, which was based on the Buzan mind mapping method.
As outside researchers we needed to make sure we truly understood and followed the conversations. We were working within different cultural frameworks and a lot of the talking was in language. I started to draw as I listened because this is how I learn best. I worked up a picture of how I understood the connections between the groups. Then I showed my drawing to the women and asked if I had understood correctly. Other people got involved in the drawing and it grew from there.
A process that began as a simple check became a useful note taking method and a resource used many times for participatory planning and evaluation. It opened up a space where people could be engaged and truly share information. We thought of it as ‘mind mapping’.
The finished ‘mind maps’ look a bit like sand drawings or paintings (see below). They show relationships between agencies, groups and places. They show walking tracks to destinations where we aim to end up. They lead to action. For example, when the Healthy Lifestyle Festival is planned each year ‘mind maps’ can be used to follow the right networks for sharing information, the paths for reaching different groups and the type of activities to support.
I think mind mapping works here because it is a process of drawing and telling a story. It accords with the visual and oral way things are learned traditionally. We see how caring for self connects with caring for family and caring for country (Maria Scarlett, Project Officer, Menzies School of Health Research).
Download mind-map sketch as a pdf.
The following map tracks how the many parts of the Galiwinku Healthy Lifestyle Program reach different groups of people through community structures, agencies and activities.
