March 11, 2005
Information Design Watch
From Dynamic Diagrams
Consultants in Visual Logic
In This Issue:
INFORMATION DESIGN
- Bug Free Health Care?
- Web Publishing for Project Management
VISUAL EXPLANATION
- Baby Name Popularity
- Learning Objects Online
INFORMATION DESIGN
Bug Free Health Care?
Studies in the Journal of the American Medical Association report that treatment tracking software may be problematic for patients. This summary in the New York Times only vaguely distinguishes between data standards, software development, and usability, but clearly some of the reported problems relate to information architecture:
"To find a single patient's medications, the researchers found, a doctor might have to browse through up to 20 screens of information....Among the potential causes of errors they listed were patient names' being grouped together confusingly in tiny print, drug dosages that seem arbitrary and computer crashes."
The first of the JAMA studies, "Role of Computerized Physician Order Entry Systems in Facilitating Medication Errors," is offered for free on the association's Web site:
Web Publishing for Project Management
A number of companies are promoting Web publishing as a better way to handle project communications. Better than email, for instance. As publishers, project team members can post text, images, and other files to a persistent, version-controlled environment. Data sharing and collaborative editing tools turn such repositories into online communities.
VISUAL EXPLANATION
Baby Name Popularity
Using data compiled by the U.S. Social Security Administration, the publishers of the book Baby Name Wizard have created an interactive Java application that charts the popularity of various names over time. Most interesting is the application's letter by letter response as you type in a specific name. You can launch the application from here:
For the source data, go to the Social Security Administration's online database of baby names:
Learning Objects Online
"Learning objects" are self-contained content modules that educators may use independently, add to lectures, or aggregate into a broader course of study. At Wesleyan University, a dedicated team is using the Internet as a distribution medium for multimedia-based modules:
"We are working with faculty to develop interactive learning tools and animations that will help students understand difficult concepts. These modules can be shared across campus, with faculty at other institutions and be used both inside and outside of the classroom."
The team's projects show the range of possibilities, from an interactive map of the temples of Palenque to a simulation of protein synthesis.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To unsubscribe from this newsletter, please email
news@dynamicdiagrams.com with the word "unsubscribe" in the Subject line.