October 18, 2006
Information Design Watch
From Dynamic Diagrams
Design for Understanding
In This Issue:
DESIGN
- How to Generate New Ideas
- The Magical, Mysterious Design Process
- Maps as a Tool for Creativity
VISUAL EXPLANATION
- Visual History
- We Feel Fine
DYNAMIC DIAGRAMS NEWS
- Photographs by Piotr Kaczmarek
- Information Design Consultant and Senior Designer Needed
DESIGN
How to Generate New Ideas
Posted by Henry Woodbury
Statistician Seth Roberts, "best selling author and paragon of scientific self-experimentation," is the feature of a link-rich blog post by Tyler Cowen, titled How to Be Happy. What struck me, upon following several links, was Roberts' interest in idea generation. The "how to be happy" link leads to an unpublished paper titled "Self-experimentation as a source of new ideas: Ten examples about sleep, mood, health, and weight." Even better is the first section of this paper: Three Things Statistics Textbooks Don't Tell You (PDF). Roberts writes:
Statistics textbooks usually discuss graphic displays of data, but the stated goal is presentation, not idea generation (e.g., Howell, 1999). This reflects the statistics literature, where sophistication and enthusiasm about graphics usually concern presentation (e.g., Gelman, Pasarica, & Dodhia, 2002; Schmid, 1983). Tufte's (1983, 1990) lovely books, for example, are entirely about presentation; nothing is said about idea generation.
What Roberts found through his own experiments should resonate with anyone who communicates visually:
A major reason for graphing one's data [is that a] tiny fraction of one's graphs will suggest new lines of research.Or, to repeat his quote of statistician John Tuckey:
The picture-examining eye is the best finder we have of the wholly unanticipated.
When developing visual explanations we think in terms of the information we want to clarify, the story we want to tell, the audience we want to engage. What goes unmentioned is the fact that moving from text and numbers to visuals can change the way we think about our overall concept. Sometimes a visual explanation suggests powerful alternatives for further exploration. Sometimes we realize that the data doesn't support the stated goals of the project and a new approach is needed.
While our own project model involves extensive research and analysis, we have learned to begin drafting visual ideas as soon as we have any applicable information to work with. Iterative thumbnails and sketches do more than picture the research. They themselves are analytical tools that help us (and our clients) steer clear of blind alleys and drive toward more persuasive, innovative visual results.
http://sethroberts.net/about/2005_Three_Things_Statistics_Textbooks_Don't_Tell_You%20_Dec_2005.pdf (PDF)
The Magical, Mysterious Design Process
Posted by Lisa Agustin
In a recent DesignObserver post, Michael Bierut muses about how the design process "really" works:
When I do a design project, I begin by listening carefully to you as you talk about your problem and read whatever background material I can find that relates to the issues you face. If you're lucky, I have also accidentally acquired some firsthand experience with your situation. Somewhere along the way an idea for the design pops into my head from out of the blue. I can't really explain that part; it's like magic. Sometimes it even happens before you have a chance to tell me that much about your problem! Now, if it's a good idea, I try to figure out some strategic justification for the solution so I can explain it to you without relying on good taste you may or may not have. Along the way, I may add some other ideas, either because you made me agree to do so at the outset, or because I'm not sure of the first idea. At any rate, in the earlier phases hopefully I will have gained your trust so that by this point you're inclined to take my advice. I don't have any clue how you'd go about proving that my advice is any good except that other people -- at least the ones I've told you about -- have taken my advice in the past and prospered. In other words, could you just sort of, you know...trust me?
While Bierut's observation is humorous, it touches upon how important it is for design firms to explain what they do in a way that potential clients (presumably non-designers) will understand, even if it does involve an element of the unexplainable. In the end, the process comes down to starting with left-brain activity (e.g., researching and analyzing), mulling over what you've learned in terms of business goals and customer needs, and "transforming" it into a product that will address both.
http://www.designobserver.com/archives/017485.html
Maps as a Tool for Creativity
Posted by Lisa Agustin
A recent edition of BusinessWeek Online's IN: Inside Innovation offers its picks for seven tools and trends that companies are using to jump-start creativity. Mapping is included in two instances: as a way of diagramming social networks within organizations, and also as a tool for visualizing collaborative work on wikis via IBM's History Flow tool. While IN suggests that these tools and trends are used to "accelerate the creative process," I wish they had elaborated on this point, especially with regard to social network mapping -- e.g., Does a bigger network generate more (or better) ideas?
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/09/in_short/source/1.htm
VISUAL EXPLANATION
Visual History
Posted by Henry Woodbury
The Maps of War Web site currently features an animated map of the Middle East that asks and answers the question "Who has conquered the Middle East over the course of world events? See 5,000 years of history in 90 seconds..."
In its final sequence, the entire history is replayed in very fast time with the cities of Jerusalem and Baghdad as anchor points. The replay evokes a theme: impermanence, instability, an unknown future.
http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/imperial-history.html
We Feel Fine
Posted by Chris Jackson
There's a bunch of ways to talk about We Feel Fine: It's Web 2.0, social networking, Flash UI, and several other buzzwords. But the most interesting aspect to me is the synthesis of data from across the Web that makes a diary of Us.
The magic behind We Feel Fine involves a data collection engine, statistical analysis based on information in the blog (feeling expressed, age, gender, date, location, and weather), and a cool interface that presents the results in "movements." In the first movement, blog entries are represented by dots and squares that swarm. When you click a dot, the other dots move away from it (to represent looking at someone apart from the group) and the "feeling" snippet from that blog appears. The other movements let you look at the data in different ways, each provoking a different way to respond. And you can filter the data: How were other males your age feeling on a rainy day in your hometown?
Jonathan Harris and Sepandar Kamvar created the site/application as part of their "exploration of humans through the artifacts they leave behind on the Web." Put together, these blog artifacts give a composite of our collective emotional state, while respecting our individualities (you can click through to the original blogs, and only publicly published data is displayed).
So what can we make of this, other than to admire the concept or spend some (or a lot) of time playing voyeur? What happens when we map the data against specific events such as the 2004 Red Sox Championship or the 2000 Election Complications? How can marketing people use this? What other information can be gleaned from the mountains of data we publish every second? What are we going to do with it?
DYNAMIC DIAGRAMS NEWS
Photographs by Piotr Kaczmarek
Posted by Henry Woodbury
The new issue of New, the "Irregular Literary Poetry Avant Garde Art Magazine" edited by Dynamic Diagrams' founder, Paul Kahn, features photographs by our Creative Director Piotr Kaczmarek:
I chose the leafless trees as a subject because I was interested in a clear visual representation of a complex structure; starting from the high level of defined spaces between tree canopies, then the obvious organization of branches, and patterns of twigs. I like the drawing-like line qualities of the subject. What the collages are after is to reveal the fractal nature of these organic shapes.
http://www.new-mag.com/2_2006/kacmarek_trees/detailpage.htm
Information Design Consultant and Senior Designer Needed
Join the Dynamic Diagrams team and help create new ways to visualize complex information! We have two full-time, permanent positions open. We are looking for an information design professional with proven experience in information design, marketing strategy, and communications. We also need a senior designer with experience in visualization and Web interface design. For details, see our Careers page:
http://www.dynamicdiagrams.com/about/careers.html
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