Design of Understanding notes
I enjoyed speaking at the Design of Understanding event at St Bride Library the week before last. It was good to hear some feedback from the design community about the work I'm doing in communicating scientific data with graphics.
I was also really impressed by the wonderful visual notes produced by not one but two of the delegates at the event! The first from Boon Yew Chew:
I think it's a really good summary. I like the quick sketches to remind him of three of my graphics - the Pharma Town, GOfER and the climate change arrow / box graphics. Also very pleased to hear that he thinks graphics should be academic work in their own right, although it is mostly written papers that get published (albeit with occasional diagrams). It's always a challenge that design academics (and students) face.
One point of clarification - I don't think that bar and pie charts are necessarily A Bad Thing. In fact, they form the foundation of many successful information graphics, and can be a powerful way of presenting some (fairly simple) numerical data in their own right. However, I feel that there is a lot of research on (badly rendered and labelled versions of) these techniques, but little on more sophisticated data visualisations. Partly, I suspect, because it's harder to generalise this research.
Anyway, I really appreciate the page as a whole, and I'm very impressed at how much you've managed to fit in there.
Also, we have this wonderful page of notes featuring me and Lloyd Shepherd, by Eva-Lotta Lamm:
Again, a nice little sketch to remind her of the climate change box / arrow diagram, but what really impressed me is the detail in the climate change pharmaceutical diagram (the big circular one) - it's very clear and well drawn. I also love the pharmaceutical industry rep on the right!
The illustration of word vs pictures in the bottom right in connection with memory is interesting... I'd hesitate to say that graphics are always better, but seemed to be in the situation we tested, with long complex and non-linear narrative in text vs the specific type of box / arrow flow diagram I used. I think she does mean it in this way, as she labels my graph "preliminary insights", but I just thought I'd clarify for any readers here that weren't at the event.
Also, in connection with my speech bubble in the top left, I'm not entirely sure that I think information graphics and diagrams should be made with the intention of influencing policy makers. They may or may not do that, depending on the data. But informing and helping them to understand is definitely something I'd aim for.
Glad to see the quote from the top of this blog too! Definitely my favourite definition for information graphics so far (but I would say that).
Anyway, thanks both very much for your notes, I found it really interesting and helpful to see them. I hope I can use the knowledge to improve my future presentations.
I was also really impressed by the wonderful visual notes produced by not one but two of the delegates at the event! The first from Boon Yew Chew:
I think it's a really good summary. I like the quick sketches to remind him of three of my graphics - the Pharma Town, GOfER and the climate change arrow / box graphics. Also very pleased to hear that he thinks graphics should be academic work in their own right, although it is mostly written papers that get published (albeit with occasional diagrams). It's always a challenge that design academics (and students) face.
One point of clarification - I don't think that bar and pie charts are necessarily A Bad Thing. In fact, they form the foundation of many successful information graphics, and can be a powerful way of presenting some (fairly simple) numerical data in their own right. However, I feel that there is a lot of research on (badly rendered and labelled versions of) these techniques, but little on more sophisticated data visualisations. Partly, I suspect, because it's harder to generalise this research.
Anyway, I really appreciate the page as a whole, and I'm very impressed at how much you've managed to fit in there.
Also, we have this wonderful page of notes featuring me and Lloyd Shepherd, by Eva-Lotta Lamm:
Again, a nice little sketch to remind her of the climate change box / arrow diagram, but what really impressed me is the detail in the climate change pharmaceutical diagram (the big circular one) - it's very clear and well drawn. I also love the pharmaceutical industry rep on the right!
The illustration of word vs pictures in the bottom right in connection with memory is interesting... I'd hesitate to say that graphics are always better, but seemed to be in the situation we tested, with long complex and non-linear narrative in text vs the specific type of box / arrow flow diagram I used. I think she does mean it in this way, as she labels my graph "preliminary insights", but I just thought I'd clarify for any readers here that weren't at the event.
Also, in connection with my speech bubble in the top left, I'm not entirely sure that I think information graphics and diagrams should be made with the intention of influencing policy makers. They may or may not do that, depending on the data. But informing and helping them to understand is definitely something I'd aim for.
Glad to see the quote from the top of this blog too! Definitely my favourite definition for information graphics so far (but I would say that).
Anyway, thanks both very much for your notes, I found it really interesting and helpful to see them. I hope I can use the knowledge to improve my future presentations.
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