Informed Infographics: Using Theory to Support Visual Presentations

“Hurricane Sandy: The Financial Aftermath” infographic presents financial data, statistics, and a personal account in one space, and it examines the financial plight of storm victims in light of the financial assistance they have received through FEMA and insurance policies, compared to the financial loss suffered.

To set up a comparative framework, (as seen in the screenshot below) I contrasted the number of FEMA grant applications sent in from Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York, with the number of FEMA grants that were actually approved for those states respectively. For example, in the upper third of my infographic, I used icons to help convey different kinds of information:  the folder icon for bureaucratic process, the money bag icon for funds, and an icon that resembles our capitol building to represent state government.  Edward Tufte, (2006) contemporary author and expert on the visual display of qualitative and quantitative information, writes in Beautiful Evidence, to place labels directly on images when possible–which in turn helps to reinforce and concretize connections and causal relationships. “For showing evidence, the map metaphor suggests that labels belong on images, that external grids help scale images, and that data are more credible when contextualized” (p. 21). Likewise, I have placed the labels for “FEMA Grant Applications” and “FEMA Grants Approved” directly onto the orange and green folder icons. The names of the states and the numerical data are placed in very close proximity so that they appear as sets of information, easily distinguishable from one another.

Tufte instructs, “For explanatory presentations, important comparisons among images should usually be pointed out to viewers by means of annotations, arrows, highlighting, or other methods of directing attention” (p. 45). Therefore, to concretize connections on the page-space, I use different styles of arrows. For example, in the mid-section, the green arrow that flows off of the green line functions to connect the upper portion featuring the data about “FEMA Grants Approved” to the graph which states the exact dollar amount of the Maximum FEMA Grant ($31,000) and the percentage of people in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York who received the Maximum FEMA Grant Award.

Moving over to the left-hand side of the mid-section, (see screenshot below) I use curved black arrows to connect the first statistic about Hurricane Sandy being the 2^nd costliest hurricane in U.S. history to more specific financial data. First, I state that the estimated debt from the storm as being $30 – $50 billion and then just below that statistic I provide a breakdown, ($20 billion in property damages and an estimated $10 – $20 billion in lost business). The arrows are black because the icons are gray; so having a difference in color between the elements helps to break up the visual field and differentiates the arrows from the images.  Here, the arrows not only serve to visually connect the information, but they also create a sense of hierarchy by functioning as bullet points.

Now, when creating the pie chart to represent the financial aftermath of the storm on an individual level, I had the option to simply connect the financial data to the chart using thin lines in a minimalist style. However, Tufte would argue that, “The more generic the arrows and lines, the greater the ambiguity” (p. 68). So, in line with his ideas, I decided to create customized arrows to help ground the text and numbers to the exact place on the pie chart. Doing so helps to avoid confusion and assists the reader in being able to quickly scan the infographic and see what information is being communicated without having to closely study and dissect the graphic.

Ellen Lupton, (2010) author of Thinking With Type, writes, “A typographic hierarchy expresses the organization of content, emphasizing some elements and subordinating others” (p. 132). To create a sense of hierarchy for the bottom third of the infographic, I used the same font for the header, “The Battlefield of Individual Financial Recovery” that I used for the main title, “Hurricane Sandy, The Financial Aftermath”. I made this design choice in order to convey that the information presented is not a continuation of the mid-section, but instead a new set of information. Additionally, I added visual distinction by shading it in green. Just below the header, outlined in a blue speech bubble, is a direct quote from Nicholas Dorman, a Great Kills, Staten Island resident, which serves as a caption: “A disaster happened and they’re making money off of us.” I wanted to use a direct quote from a real person to allow the statistics and financial information a more human feel, which in turn helps the reader to better identify with the case presented.

Some readers are “primarily attracted to pictures and captions, while others prefer to follow a dominant written narrative…” (Lupton, 2010, p. 130). The caption assists in framing the range of financial facts and data in a more local scope and personal context, and it also lets the reader know at a glance specifically what the text is going to discuss. Regarding typographic design choices for pie chart label, I selected a vivid blue in a Helvetica typeface at a size 14 font, bold. These attributes allow the chart label to be easily read while appearing visually soft at the same time, so as not to be appear too heavy or overpowering.  As Lupton writes, “Scale is the size of the design elements in comparison to other elements in a layout as well as to the physical context of the work” (p. 42).

Sources

Lupton, E. (2010). Thinking with Type. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

Tufte, E. (2006). Beautiful Evidence (3^rd Edition). Cheshire: Graphics Press LLC.

Infographic blog 2

Rather than strictly throw numbers in the reader’s face, I wanted to create visuals to demonstrate the information I wanted to convey because Edward Tufte writes, “The similar treatment of text, diagrams, and images suggests to readers that images are as relevant and credible as words and diagrams (109).”. So, for my demographics panel, I made a cluster of white students juxtaposed with a smaller number of minority students to represent the disparity in racial representation of home-schooled students. Rather than write out a sentence or chart, I used stick figure graphics to show the difference to make a point about privilege and home-schooling because Tufte writes that we should use the object itself in our evidence presentations, rather than just their names (Tufte 121).

Originally, along with my projection screen backgrounds for two of my slides, I also had boxes to contain my snippets of data. After consulting Beautiful Evidence, I realized what a horrible mistake this was. So, I removed the boxes and the occasional cartoony arrow because “Omitting boxes increases explanatory resolution (Tufte 79).” Rather than clutter the design of the infographic with unnecessary frames, I focused on my message because “If every name is highlighted, no name is (79).”

To add a bit of “pop” to my header, I included an enlarged capital (versal) in “home-schooling (Lupton 125).” The house forms the x-height of the the “h,” and the chimney forms the ascender. Writing the header in this way also uses Tufte’s “using the thing to demonstrate the thing” principle. I used a few different fonts to try to convey the sense of a learning environment: The background of my infographic is green, and it’s filled with opaque equations scrawled all over, like a chalkboard. The header is a typeface called “eraser,” and it looks like magic marker written on a whiteboard or chalk on a blackboard. The body of the text uses the “JennaSue” typeface, which resembles the handwritten cursive a student might use to jot down his or her notes in class. Plus, the JennaSue typeface is in white, so it creates a suitable visual metaphor of chalk on a chalkboard. Finally, there’s a bit-like computer font used on a projection screen about certification for home-schooling parents.

My infographic reflections

Reflection 1

As a huge baseball fan, I wanted to find an aspect of the sport I could make an interesting presentation on (instead of Hey, so-and-so can still throw X amount of curve balls after X amount of years). In researching baseball-not uninfluenced by the amount of “42” trailers-I decided to investigate diversity in baseball. This was further revised to African-Americans and their presence in baseball. I’ve had arguments about this before, and many people simply say something along the lines of “It doesn’t matter what color a person is, baseball is just about how good you are as a player.” While this is true, I wanted to be able to illustrate that there are roadblocks keeping African-Americans from developing into major-league talent.

One of the problems I encountered with my first draft was a lack of any sense of narrative. I was all over the place. In this draft, I was able to focus on one group, which really helped me show change over time and offer reasons for the change. Since my topic is essentially disparity, I wanted visual reminders. To this end, I used graphs and color options to emphasize the differences. I also made use of the icons/images offered by Piktochart when talking about the reasons offered/suggested for why the African-American numbers have dipped, as well as areas in which baseball is trying to improve. I did this because I thought visuals would make the socio-economics that act against integration more concrete.

Many of the design problems I encountered came from the website’s interface. While I was able to graph the 75/856 African-American player representation, I was unable to present more information in that style graph because Piktochart informed me I did not have access too it. This resulted in my having to try to scratch-graph it, which explains why some of the baseballs in the second graph in that block are a bit wonky. I think Piktochart would benefit from some sort of “auto-align” tool for different columns/grouped information.

During revisions, aspects of my presentation (icons or what have you) would sometimes disappear for several sessions, which was unnerving. I would replace it in the infographic, and then the original would reappear sometimes days later. I also feel that Piktochart is a bit over-eager to group things together. Adding/changing text formats was annoying-it would revert to false in whatever font/color/size you wanted to change too, instead of simply changing existing fonts. As a first time Piktochart user, I felt the walk-through tutorial could be a little more robust and in-depth.

I feel that an infographic was a good approach to showing rather than telling, to acknowledge opposite arguments and refute them.

Reflection 2

I wanted my infographic to be beautiful evidence. So in constructing my presentation, I knew that there were definite Tuftean principles I wanted to apply. Firstly, due to spatial considerations, I, like Tufte, would need to become a proponent of visual density. The infographic is a very finite space, and given my topic one that I needed to make the most of.  It was at times difficult to strike a balance. It was in finding a balance that I began to experiment with font styles and size in order to maximize my real estate.

To avoid overpopulating my infographic, I relied partially on using the layout of the theme to separate and compartmentalize ideas. Tufte recommends keeping related information at eye level,  so readers understand that the information is connected (Tufte p.91). By quasi-cartouching, I hoped to avoid presenting a confusing and difficult to read column of text and image. So, I hope to have made it easier to differentiate between ideas in my infographic without having made my presentation choppy.

Font use was another way I attempted to distinguish between information types.I limited myself to 5 fonts, 4 font sizes, and 3 colors during my presentation. I wanted to use group information by font, so that when readers saw a font that had been previously used in my presentation, they would automatically make a link between the two pieces of information. I also but a lot of thinking into font selection, as Ellen Lupton, author of Thinking With Type, writes that there is a whole history and metaphor/ emotive aspect to font selection. Going off of this, I picked very clear, thin, almost severe “hard” fonts for factual information, and a wider, more spacious, “softer” font for quotes. I was my intention to use these alternative fonts to mimic the idea of “hard facts.” Courier New has a sense of coldness (I think, due to the thinness of the characters), so I used that font when talking about the real world and it’s inequality. Likewise, I chose a font for the quotes that counterbalanced this, reasoning that the quotes are from people trying to put their own spin on the situation, and thus are a bit inflated.

I think producing an infographic is a great working example of a selection from Tufte’s book ” whatever evidence it takes to understand what is going on” (Tufte p. 78). Piktochart offers a lot of images and icons, which could easily be converted into the type of distracting “phluff” as Tufte calls it, that litters many PowerPoint presentations. The challenge is to use these images as a mode of information, or as repetitive information. In my infographic, I use visuals (baseballs for timeline, a schoolhouse, etc) to reinforce the topic. This can be used to particular affect in graphing.Instead of using a pie or bar graph, which provide abstract visuals, I chose to display my data in a more visually appealing way. Instead of impersonal lines and circles, my graphs recall humanity. Further, the use of color and countable icons in my graphs is superior to visually abstract pie/bar charts when trying to project disparity.

I tried to show forward progress (where it existed) and used comparison whenever possible. Tufte argues for comparison when presenting data, as it provides context to information. So, for everything I touched upon, I tried to provide a scale. Without such knowledge, we can’t really ascertain if there is a problem. Scale comparison was especially important to my presentation, as it is about a group being marginalized. Instead of just saying there is a problem in baseball now, we must look at this years number as it relates to the whole history of African-Americans in baseball. We must look at contributing factors, and compare the African-American baseball population to African-American total population. Only through examining these factors can we accurately declare that there is a real problem with the number of African-American players represented.

I relied heavily on Tufte and Lupton’s theories in designing my infographic. Without their influences, I feel that my presentation would have been “pretty” (if I was lucky) without really having anything to say, which is a damnable sin in evidential presentations. Being able to go to their works for reference helped me understand way of putting content first, then using other aspects of the presentation as enhancements.

By using Lupton’s approach to layout, I feel that my attempt at a Tuftean infographic was as successful as a first-timer could be.

An Infographic on the Importantance of Breakfast!

 

Reflection 1

I originally started out wanting to create an infographic on waffles, but I ran into a dilemma: what is there really to say about waffles? This is when I realized that there is so much to be said about breakfast. In this infographic, I wanted to build awareness that breakfast is essential for a healthy life and I also wanted to try and encourage those who don’t eat breakfast, to eat breakfast.  Furthermore, towards the end, I wanted to stress that it’s not just eating breakfast that is important, but what you eat for breakfast.

I start my infographic out with a timeline, which I feel slowly invites people in, especially when they see the “Eggo shortage” point.  After I get my audience’s attention, I share the statistics of the percentage of people who skip breakfast by age groups. These statistics are then followed by what percentages of those skippers are obese. I believe that these statistics alone will shock and draw attention to the changes that need to be made.  Towards the end, I have “building blocks” about nutrition, followed by lists of ways to create, and help any individual stick to a healthy breakfast.  I think these all flow together to help support my goals in educating the world about a healthy breakfast.

I think if I had to write a paper on this topic instead, it wouldn’t be as inviting or as easy to understand. I wanted to show statistics, but not in a way that was boring or repetitive.  However, this assignment did pose some challenges and issues. First, Piktochart separated everything into blocks which allowed for a lot of issues to occur when attempting to move things around. Second, it offered a limited amount of icons that didn’t really apply to my topic. For instance, after we spent a whole class deciding that a coffee cup would suffice for my chart, I had come home and I did not have the coffee cup available any more on my screen (for reasons unknown).  In my other chart, I had different color circles represent the amount of favorite breakfast foods, yet Piktochart made the key displayed as boxes. While I was able to cover these boxes with my own circles, this was a lot of unnecessary work that could’ve been avoided if Piktochart created a better presentation.

In the end, I think this might’ve been easier if I was a designer with some experience on how to put things together in a way that creates a good flow. However, as an experienced writer, I think I was able to create a good piece of writing. A piece of writing is about good content and the presentation of it, not just one or the other.

Reflection 2

Before I even started putting things on my infographic, I realized that Piktochart was already separated into blocks, which made it easy for me to think about it in terms of grids. As Lupton writes, grids “break space or time into regular units,” (p. 151).   On each block, I tried to figure out how I could create grids. For example, the title and explanation (at the top of my infographic) is broken into two grids, while the one that follows (the timeline) is displayed in one grid. I tried to alternate grids to create a better flow, but it also depended on the type of information I planned on displaying.

The information I used in my infographic varies on how it needed to be displayed. The timeline is a great example; it needed to be displayed in a whole block to show the distance of time from year to year. Furthermore, it was shown across the page, because according to Tufte “reading across describes sequence of movements,” showing the movement of time from left to right (p. 33).  I originally had my timeline going downwards, showing movement from an older year to a newer year, but I decided to change it as it didn’t match our metaphor of time. As humans, we often view time as across the horizon, moving towards one year and away from the other.

In the next grid, I display two statistics, which were crafted around both Tufte and Lupton’s theories on information design. Lupton writes that “design and text gently collaborate to enhance understanding,” (p. 7).  I put the percentage in a circle and had it displayed larger than the text it collaborated with in hopes that it would draw more attention to itself, and I believe this technique worked. The number and the text are not directly together; instead the text lies parallel to the number, but in a way that is not directly connected. As Tufte argued, most graphics that have nouns are connected by arrows or links, because “the evidence in variation in connections is stronger than evidence for sameness,” (p. 79). From this, I was able to pick out an arrow/link to connect the two together that provided a strong connection without distracting my audience. When I first came to these two statistics, I wasn’t sure how to display them. Originally, I had just thought that by writing it out as “22% are obese”, it would come off as boring and ineffective. I had remembered how I once read statistics in a magazine that was similar to the way I presented it, and then I recalled the theories presented by Lupton and Tufte, which were right on point. Tufte claims that there should be “no distinction among words and images” (p. 49), and I think by using arrows and links, there is no distinction between the two, at least in this case.

Next to this grid, I show more statistics; the percentage of people who skip breakfast, varying from male and female and from age group. This was originally displayed in a bar graph, which was what Tufte defined as chart junk. It was chart junk because it took information and made it into a bunch of junk that really had no effect on my audience. As Tufte argued, mapped pictures should “combine representational images with scales, diagrams, overlays, numbers, words, and images,” (p. 13).  In this grid, I attempted to do just that. I used the icon of a plate and utensils to display a certain percentage of people. This is what Tufte refers to as a sparkline, or a “data intense, design simple, and word sized graphic,” (p. 47). By displaying this information in this way, instead of the original bar graph way, it provides a greater level of understanding.

Understanding is the main goal of any piece of writing, so it’s important to involve metaphors in the way information is presented, as that’s how humans relate to things. In the next section, I used a squiggly boarder to make the grid appear as a chalkboard. Inside of the “chalkboard” I put blocks, and labeled them as “the building blocks of breakfast”.  I thought that this was a dead giveaway to the metaphor of building up your life to a great one. Furthermore, I really wanted to incorporate movement arrows in among these blocks, to show the relationships of the blocks. Tufte argues that “important comparisons among images should be pointed out by arrows, labels, and other methods of directing attention,” (p. 45). I added the circular arrows and other arrows to draw attention to the importance of each, but also to show the relationship among them.

In regards to relationships among the design, the text relationship to the design further enhances understanding. Although I was limited to the types of fonts available, I made sure each font correlated to the words. As Lupton writes, the goal is “to find an appropriate match between style of letters and the specific social situation and body of content that define the project at hand,” (p. 32). In other words, I viewed each portion of text as a human. Lupton claims that “words originated as gestures of the body” (p. 13) and that they give “language a physical body” (p. 13). I selected certain fonts depending on how they appeared, much like how we judge humans on how they appear. Furthermore, Lupton argues that the contrast between big and small type “creates drama and surprise,” (p. 45), so I attempted to use this technique to my advantage at certain points in my infographic. Overall, I think it’s safe to say that without Lupton and Tufte’s information design techniques, I may not have created a beautiful infographic that enhanced understanding on healthy breakfasts.

Resources:

Lupton, E. (2010). Type (2nd Expanded ed.). New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press.

Tufte, E. (2006). Beautiful evidence (3rd ed.). Cheshire, CT: Author.

Baseball infographic

 

Here’s my baseball infographic. Feedback would be lovely.

breakfast; the most important meal of the day

Asking Questions Without Expecting Answers

This past week, we read and discussed former Formula One racer Franco Moretti’s book, Graphs, Maps, and Trees: Abstract Models for Literary History. While his layout might not be the most beautiful-several expressed a Tuftean dislike for placement of visuals and scale-Moretti’s key idea is revolutionary and exciting.

His concept of distant reading (focusing not on individual words and individual texts, but on genre, literary trends) is one that helps us as consumers and presenters of information. By using his process of deliberate reduction and abstraction, we can parse away unnecessary details that might otherwise draw our attention away. A perfect example of this is Charles Minard’s map of the retreat from Russia.

Notice that superfluous details-geographic map, description of army components, even Napoleon’s name-are left out of the graph. These are all things that distract us from what we are trying to understand. To borrow Tufte’s word, chartjunk. As Moretti puts it, distance is not an obstacle, but a specific form of knowledge.

Graphs are important, to Moretti they provide “quantitative research which provides a type of data which is ideally independent of interpretations.”

We made our own graph. For zombie movies. Because genres.  (The rise/fall of genre and literary trends is a large topic of Moretti’s book.)

The construction of the graph brought up an interesting question. As consumers of evidence, are we too schooled to ask Tufte’s question of “compared to what?” and expect visuals to provide perfect/complete context and understanding of it’s topic?  As a class, we were very-almost over-eager to explain why the sudden rise for zombie flicks. Each rise, surely, is instigated by a worldwide disease outbreak. No, the spikes reflect a war beginning or ending.

It could be both. It may be neither. To be honest, we don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. We got caught up in the why-did-this-happen, at the cost of saying, ok, this happened. Moretti says that we put many people off teaching because we have the answer to everything.

Are we as consumers and producers of information too eager to apply readings and rationales to graphics? Are we, as Moretti implies, unwilling to accept that we might not have the answers?

Such questions clearly shade how we think of ourselves as presenters. Instead of presenting to prove a point, maybe we should provide, and request others to provide, raw data.

Going back to our zombie chart, we were very excited to be able to show that other things were happening concurrent to the rising spike in zombie movies. But we need to temper this excitement of proving with the threat of false causailty. In class, we could not prove that zombie movies shot up do to global illness or war. It just looked coincidental and we made the assumption that the twain were linked. THIS IS BAD! Both may prove to have some influence on the success of the zombie genre, but without hard proof, it does us no credit to make any suppositions.

This needs to inform our evidence presentations. We must be wary to present information in a way that makes inaccurate connections. We, as presenters, must swallow any pride and admit when we do not know, and simply present what we have as raw data.

Moretti is more than happy to conclude passages in his book by admitting he has no answers, that there might not be any answers.  This is an attitude we should adopt. It may infuriating to some, but sometimes the smartest thing we can say is, “I don’t know.”

 

Embodied Connections: Meaning-Making in a Multimodal Discourse

This past week in our graduate course on Information Architecture with Professor Bill Wolff, we’ve explored techniques and design philosophies centered on information display. Our discussion was informed by selected readings from Edward Tufte’s  Beautiful Evidence, as well as interactive and PDF versions of  Fighting to Live as the Towers Died, by the New York Times. A specific area of focus was the concept of  ‘mapping,’ within the context of  multimodal composition. (As a preface, it is important to make the distinction that, for purposes of discussion, our definition of mapping is not limited to ‘maps’ in the conventional sense of cartographic renderings–although, it could certainly include the use of them.)

According to Tufte, mapped pictures are representational images that combine scales, diagrams, overlays, numbers, words, and images (13).

Multimodal-mapping presents the audience with several different kinds of information, via a single, visual plane–through a process of layering. Each ‘layer’ serves to signify a different kind of knowledge. For writers, mapping affords a visual dissemination of  interconnected webs of knowledge and causal relationships. In terms of information architecture and as a form of composition, multimodal-mapping frames and contextualizes specific intersections within a greater body of knowledge.

If we reflect on the discipline of communication, as writers, at the heart of our craft is effective communication with our audience. What this means in terms of execution–is that in our ‘writing,’ the intended message should come across in a way that is consistent with precisely what we mean to say. In other words, it is paramount that our composition–and therefore our message–not transmit in a convoluted or disjointed way.

So, you may ask, how does multimodality come into play, and why is ‘mapping’–or incorporating other elements besides plain text–important?

As our author asserts, at times, it is necessary to include multiple sources and levels of data (78) in order to illustrate connections and relationships, as well as make different kinds of comparisons; the use of additional kinds of information assist to better explain what we mean to say. For example, the strategic arrangement of annotative and  typographic elements–lines and arrows–as well as colors, images, and text, all function together to transmit a message that is dynamic, visually engaging and robust. Important to note, is that these elements also function to provide context and directional navigation to the page–therefore, enabling the reader to clearly ‘decode,’ or ‘read’ the message.

Another facet of multimodal-mapping is that it offers the capability to take extremely complex, high-density information–such as that of cartography, brain research, molecular biology, physics and other high-resolution fields–and re-present it in a way that the linear data becomes embodied into a single, compact, visual representation. Tufte refers to this type of visual information as sparklines or data-words (58). This definition lends itself to that of semiotic metaphor. Another way to imagine sparklines or data-words, is to think of a ‘constellation of information’–or individual, interconnected pieces of knowledge that come together, making up a whole. An example of  a sparkline is the double helix of DNA encoding (13) or Tufte’s representation of all 65 of Galileo’s published observations of Jupiter and its satellites. (Pertaining to Tufte’s re-design of Galileo’s work, we note that when the original, ‘intervening’ text was omitted, a new architecture of information presented itself, resulting in the visual evidence becoming adjacent, sequential, linked, moving (108)–a continuity became present that was not there before.)

To further extrapolate on this concept, imagine an illustration of an adult, human skeleton. Now, in order for the message to be clearly understood, specificity is essential–what is needed is clear direction, scope, and scale. With a nod to the author, presenting ‘everything’ results in contextualizing nothing (31)–it conveys a message that is abstruse. So, we don’t want to focus on the ‘whole skeleton’ per say–instead, what we want to focus on is one area. Say, it’s the left leg–and even more specifically, the tibia. According to Tufte’s definition of beautiful evidence, every image presented must reside within the universal measurement grid (45). So, connecting back to the example I discussed above, what we are concerned with, is the portrayal of relationships within a given body of knowledge–showing things in context with one another provides for a local and precise way of understanding.

Tufte also discusses explanatory mappings and the practice of exploratory image analysis. Explanatory mappings appear in scientific research, newspapers, textbooks, technical manuals, legal proceedings, engineering reports and medical research (45). However, they are not constrained exclusively to these fields of discipline; they also extent into the arts and humanities and many times are interdisciplinary, because they represent complex information.

Below is image is from a journal article in Current Opinion in Neurobiology; an example of an explanatory mapping.

Networks for segregation in the human brain.

Below, this image  is a representative time-space map of the USA belonging to an article titled, The shrivelled USA: representing time–space in the context of metropolitanization and the development of high-speed transport from The Journal of Transport Geography.

During a discussion centered on one of the interactive mappings in Fighting to Live, one of my classmates commented, I don’t know when I’m supposed to stop and when I’m supposed to look at the images.

Regarding the page’s architecture of information, my classmate’s comment was reflective of bad design in terms of the page’s directional signifiers. In sum, just as a freeway has road signs and indicators of when to stop and when to go, when to turn here and exit there, multimodal mappings are beautiful evidence of what they represent only when elements therein properly signify or ‘point to’ what they were intended to, and result in a clear transmission of the message.

#Iamondays The Lack of Mapped Images?

Christen tweeted about Interaction Design Foundation, which is a webite that shows a lot of free educational materials involve Interaction Design. I clicked this link, after I prepared to be wowed. However, I was rather disappointed. The website seemed to lack the interactive design as well as any existence of mapped images. While the website is easy to navigate, it’s a bit plain and dull. This seems kind of ironic as it’s promoting interactive design. The colors are black, white, and gray. The only color that seems to stand out is the blue buttons at the top right of the screen that highlight the users to join them, log in, or publish something with them. I supposed these colors are used to emphasize the most important elements of the website. This could further indicate that you must join in order to participate in this website. The headlines and subtitles are typically bold. There’s not a lot of confusion happening on this website. There is a toolbar across the top, which displays exactly what the bleak images and subtitles display on the homepage (the main information of the website). Furthermore, if you scroll down on the homepage, each section is displayed again, with an image and a summary of what you might find in each section. I find that this design seems like it may be too much. I’m not sure I’d agree that it needs to display the main ideas three different times on the same area, what do you think?

I decided to click on the section labeled “Free Wiki Bibliography”. Again, this section of the website was well organized and easy to navigate, but it was full of text only. I thought that each section could have been created into a mapped image. For instance, each conference on the Wiki Bibliography could’ve had timelines that were interactive. Instead, the user must select a specific date, click on it, and further read through the information available. As Edward Tufte argues in Beautiful Evidence, data is more credible when contextualized (p. 22). If each event was contextualized in some way, it would become much more credible and easily associated with.

The website requires a lot of clicking around and exploring. I decided to check out the “Free Encyclopedia” section. By clicking on this link from the home page, I’m then directed to a page of 35 titles of self-help articles involved in some type of interactive design or service. Other than the titles, I had almost no knowledge of what was behind the articles. I wanted to click on something that might offer more user interaction, so I decided to look at “Visual Representation”. Each article is available in a tablet or PDF version, and offers links to a forum or a question form for the author. I thought these were neat buttons introduced, but they seemed a bit oddly placed at the top of the article.  This specific article on “Visual Representation” involved a lot of different approaches. It not only offered text, but also video, graphs, and data as well. As Tufte states, users must understand “what the words mean in relation to the image, and what the images mean in relation to the words,” (p. 88).  For instance, in this specific section of the website, you might not understand the importance of “The Grid System” if you failed to read the article or watch the videos on Visual Representation.

There’s also a “free image” library, where one can use as long as they adhere to the “copyright terms of each individual image”. I find this attribute pretty awesome, as most pictures involve Creative Commons, which is something the world should be pushing for. When I clicked on “Join us” in the top right corner of any section, I was surprised by what came on the screen. A nice interactive design showed up, that allowed me to become a member. I could write my name in an actual certificate. There are nine different certificate templates I can chose from and place on any number of websites if I wanted to. I could find my network on an actual map. I could list my skills based on types of technology. I found this small section of the website to be the most inviting and enriching. Each image tied in with the specific section it was explaining.

Another tiny little tool I found to enhance the website: you can click that little tree in the top left corner any time to return to the home page. The tree represented a home. To me, this is a metaphor in itself. Trees grow tall, humans grow tall. I’m a big fan of this tree, especially as I assume it’s the logo image of the company. The tree appears as a big, white oak tree. Instead of buds on the ends however, are pieces of paper. I think this logo could be incorporated much more into the design, as it’s a metaphor that speaks for the company itself.

Mapped Images Provide Understanding

As Edward Tufte argues in Beautiful Evidence, mapped pictures combine “representational images with scales, diagrams, overlays, numbers, words, and images,” (p.13). Mapped pictures are very complex as they have multiple incorporations. It’s for this reason that mapped pictures are much better than just plain pictorial images. For instance, in “Fighting to Live as the Towers Died,” there are both mapped pictures, as well as simple pictorial pictures. On the very first page, there is a picture of the tower, with no added words, numbers, overlays, scales, or diagrams. While this picture does create a nice effect, adding aesthetic emotion, it doesn’t really advance any further than that. However, if you move to page two, there’s a nice outline of the North Tower that provides scales and words (labels) to help the reader associate with the text in the article. Instead of the article just talking about the different departments of the North Tower, there’s a diagram that further enforces the reality of what the article is saying. Furthermore, Tufte argues that an architectural drawing style that has a measurement scale, plain views, and labels shows that the object was “examined carefully” thus adding credibility to the image (p. 22-23). While the mapped images in the New York Times may not need credibility (as it’s the New York Times), the images do meet all of Lufte’s requirements for credibility.

Mapped images help the audience make a further connection with whatever lesson is at hand. As Tufte acclaims, a pile of “loosely related images” add up to a “coherent multiple viewpoint,” (p. 35). This claim is proven true in “Fighting to Live as the Towers Die,”.  There is a timeline of September 11^th, with arrows, pictures, words, and labels. Throughout the article there are pictures that display the faces of those that were lost (also with labels). The usage of many different mapped images adds up to show a coherent viewpoint which help aid in seeing and reading the article.

Tufte seems to think that labels should be used differently depending on the genre and context of an image. For instance, on page 42, Tufte claims that the diagram below the historical picture allows for a greater detail then placing the labels on the actual picture. I personally find this type of mapping confusing and I think it requires too much effort. I can barely figure out which shape represents each person, let alone realize that the dog is not labeled. Do you think it would’ve been better to label each person in the picture (using white labels perhaps)? I understand that this type of mapping allows for more details in the labels, but I question this too. For instance, on the next page, the dogs are labeled by name on the picture. Yes, this type of labeling is simplistic, but what if we wanted to put their breeders or some other information? I think we could also put that on the picture, underneath their names, without much hassle. Furthermore, Tufte acclaims that types of measurement should be placed directly on the photograph and that science should use this way of reporting standards (p.43). While I don’t disagree, I wonder if Tufte would agree to put measurements on the historical picture, if it were deemed necessary.

It’s interesting because, before I read Beautiful Evidence, I thought of mapped images just as the words state; an image of a map. During my reading, I thought that mapped images were strictly used in science and nature books, used to show the scales of animals and such. However, now I understand that it can and should be used virtually anywhere as it strengthens the writing it’s placed with.

All of this information helps us understand and evaluate the architecture of writing. Not only is the definition of writing becoming redefined, but the architecture of writing is also being redefined. A clear example of this is when I first started college. I took Composition 1 and 2, where I strived to write great essays and papers. The criterion for this was simple: write with a purpose, audience, and main idea in mind through clear and concise words. As I advanced my degree, it started to become much different. There were still papers and essays, but writing started to involve technology. I created a mashup video, which was basically similar to a persuasive essay. Yet I did this with only clips of videos. It’s still a form of writing, yet the architecture of it was very different from that of an essay. The involvement of mapped images in our writing will also become much more present as the idea of what writing is evolves.