CLIENT: The U.S. Federal Reserve Board via NORC at the University of Chicago
SCOPE: Print & Web Materials Introducing a Nationwide Survey to Potential Respondents
The Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) is a study that is conducted every three years for the U.S. Federal Reserve Board (FRB). When it was under the purview of the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, I designed all of the print and most of the web materials for the 2004, 2007 and 2010 rounds.
The SCF surveys approximately 6,000 U.S. citizens in each round. Representing a wide demographic cross section (race, age, income, family size, etc.) from across the nation, the main objective of the study is to capture an accurate portrait of the citizenry's finances so that the data can be analyzed and used by the U.S. government for setting future economic policy.
Because of the sensitive nature of the information collected, it was imperative for me to strike just the right visual tone in order to establish the veracity of the study, engender confidence in the respondents and ensure optimal participation, which was (is) voluntary. It was also critical for me to consider the wide range of respondents and to recognize that their circumstances differed greatly from region to region and that their sociological vernaculars were enormously diverse. Utmost care was given in order to not be exclusionary, preferential or offensive to any one respondent group.
Materials I originally designed in 2004 were successfully reused in 2007. As the 2010 date approached it was decided that a new look should be established. There was considerable discussion between the FRB and NORC about what kind of direction the aesthetic should take. Modern? Approachable? Formal? Official? Every adjective was thrown into the mix. Many, many concepts covering the gamut of the spectrum were explored. Ultimately, four were chosen to expand upon for presentation to focus groups for feedback.
We did not end up even close to where I expected. The final "e plurabis unum" themed materials are extremely traditional and governmental. From the focus groups, we learned that people, when presented with the prospect of disclosing such highly confidential information, tended to trust the survey most when it had a conservative aesthetic. Any softer approaches were perceived as not as credible and viewed as potentially suspect. To this day, I am still surprised as I would have predicted the chosen direction to be too "Big Brother" and possibly off-putting. The final materials were used to great success though, so much so that they were recycled for the 2013 round of the survey.
