HIST 697: Presenting Information Visually
I really enjoyed this week’s assigned text, Edward Tufte’s Visual Explanations. First, it’s different from all the other monographs we endlessly read as graduate students. The book is an interesting exploration of visual literacy, a skill that is often let fall by the wayside, even at the highest levels of education. Tufte’s approach is interesting not just because he wants to teach his readers how to read visual information, but because he is also interested in teaching his readers how to present information visually. Beyond the educational text of the book, it is pleasingly interactive and beautiful to look at, two important components of presenting information that content creators often ignore. I’m reminded of the times I found myself unable to read certain books simply because I found the font choice to be so jarring and poor. Visual disruption can interfere with our willingness or ability to interact with information in astounding and sublime ways.
I found myself particularly taken by the musical streams-of-story presented on pages 90-91. It reminded me a great deal of this wonderful poster by Ward Shelly visually documenting the history of science fiction:
I bought a copy and it’s currently hanging on my wall. The fact that you can only really take in all this information when it’s blown up to a gigantic size says something about the way the information is being presented. The larger size is still problematic – the image expands outside your field of view instead of being too dense to process, or disjointed because it won’t fit in a browser window when blown up. Still, larger is better. Because the image is organized chronologically from left to right, it is easier to follow the flow of information when you still can see the entire image, even peripherally. Being trapped by the box of a browser window is jarring and unsatisfying.
When I first bought it I sat in front of it and stared at it for what seemed like forever. Initially I found myself captivated simply by the shape and colorization of the image – how did the artist choose such a design, what thought went into the color selection? Does it look like an octopus on purpose? They are both alien and incredibly intelligent creatures, a seemingly fitting choice for a visual representation of science fiction.
This poster arranges information both temporally and categorically, but as I read through the flow chart I also found myself questioning why certain authors/genres had been placed in certain areas, why certain authors and genres are featured over others, among many other questions. I agree with some of the choices and disagree with others. Tufte might say that all of this information has been removed from its context. As an academic I long for footnotes and the more familiar text that explains the artist’s decisions. Somewhere I read Shelly cite Thomas Disch’s book The Dream’s Our Stuff is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World. That book is so horrible, biased, and outrageously sexist that I couldn’t finish it, and Shelly’s chart appears to be about one hundred times more intelligent, thoughtful, well-researched, an unbiased than Disch’s pithy attempt. So where is the disconnect? As a fan of science fiction and as a historian, I want breadcrumbs to lead me to the information that helped create this wonderful poster. I want the context. But how would we connect this image to its context? It seems plunking the chart down in the middle of a carefully researched monograph might create the difficulties with correspondence that Tufte reiterates through various examples. How can we explain and justify an image like this?
Tufte’s is a great book to read as we approach the creation of our own informational websites. I want to work with videos, a medium I’ve never tried to present online before, so I’m facing the challenge of how to link that visual content to whatever information I choose to present to my reader. I would love for Tufte to write an updated edition of this book with a chapter on the internet, though I will say that it’s quite remarkable how well his argument holds up over time. Even the spare bits on computers don’t really feel dated. That fact may say just as much about the way humans create and process visual information as it does about Tufte’s insights.
Speaking of visuals, we spend a lot of time talking about the importance of color. Getting color right, both in my webdesign and simply in my life is something that I find to be incredibly important. Society and history load color with meaning, so that we react to color intellectually and emotionally, more often that not without even noticing the way we’re being influenced. The right color scheme on your webpage can not only effect the readability of the site, but create mood and provide subtle context for your content. I’ve found the Color Scheme Designer to be one of the most useful tools there is in selecting colors for my sites. At the very least I can be assured that my color scheme doesn’t clash with itself, which is one step toward producing a successful site. The flexibility of this tool also means that I can go right to selecting the colors I envision, or I can play around and discover new and delightful combinations if I’m having trouble coming up with a design scheme on my own.
So far I have commented on Geoff’s blog.
First of all, I like the redesign of your blog–really nice and clean. Inspired me to redesign mine!
Nice post about visualizing. Agreed about wanting access to the raw data, too. Sometimes that can be the one issue–I want to know where something came from! I suppose that’s one of the advantage of visualizations in new media–we can leave the breadcrumbs a lot more easily. At the very least, when we do a visualization–even something that more appropriately takes up a full wall than a small laptop screen–we can at least leave our breadcrumbs on, say, our own blogs for all to see.
I do hope that the poster industry continues to grow and prosper! Your example of the genre poster made me think in two different directions: first, that some information can appear even more complex in large-size format, but requires an attention to the details to make sense of it all – rather like those wall-sized maps that are packed with good stuff, but seem overwhelming in the aggregate; and second: that the visual experience can not always be shrunk to screen size with the same effect. Only by focusing in on the little snippets of detail do we grasp the wonder, sense the structure, and can then get an idea of the relationship of the part to the larger whole, as in your genre example. Then, once we see the structure, we are able to zoom out for the “big picture” effect. For some I’m sure the process works better in reverse – get a sense for the big picture, then zoom in to appreciate the details – but it is in appreciating both big and small that the whole is formed.
Recreating this experience is just not the same on tiny portable computer screens. It is like taking an IMAX movie and trying to view it on a hand-held screen – you lose the details for the sake of the larger picture. Same thing with posters – what teen’s room hasn’t seen its share of pop posters in glorious color? My Michael Jackson and Shaun Cassidy posters (back in the day) just would not have been the same packaged in a trading card format. Granted, they would have been easier to transport, perhaps, but not as exciting to view! Even now we adorn our walls with maps and posters – pretty much a staple of the traditional social studies classroom, but even that feature is changing in classrooms as rolled up maps are replaced with white boards or smart boards. I am a traditionalist and there is something to be said for consuming information on a grand scale! Keep the posters and wall maps, supplement with google earth, but providing students with something beautiful on the wall or ceiling to ponder during a block class is perhaps the kindest gift an educator can give!
I agree with David and Sheri, I like your inclusion of and points about the Ward Shelly’s sci-fi origins map. It’s very much like the cholera map of Dr. John Snow that Tufte discusses in his book; it doesn’t translate well to a smaller format. It becomes much more difficult to read and understand. As you pointed out. I will say I have many issues with this graphic, which are in part inspired by reading Tufte’s book. What’s with the wormholes? Does that denote that they’ve spun off into their own genre completely separate from sci-fi? Not sure what the color scheme represents either, which I believe is a concern you raised as well. It appears that he’s making an argument that Alive in Wonderland is related to the genre, but somehow the stories of Jorge Luis Borges aren’t? Also it appears that Shelly is making an argument that distinct strands of literature are converging and diverging to make sci-fi (and other genres). And while there is truth to that, a “great” contribution of the twentieth century to literature is the creation of distinct genres. Which he may be saying… he’s probably saying that in a round-about way. These are just a few of my concerns. This graphic could only be improved with a good legend and (perhaps) references to what he’s basing his arguments on. You’re right, our historical training pushes us toward a desire to want and need references and sources. Yet I don’t believe that to be absurd in anyway. Access to source material (and the breadcrumbs/sign posts that provide such access) allow the author and reader (or graphic designer and viewer) to have a much fuller, richer, and far more complex conversation with each other. We have to allow for proper dialogue. For me when breadcrumbs aren’t provided it immediately sends a signal that the author is trying to hide something. If I can’t check work, then I’m not sure I should trust it. Of course this also means that I should probably start checking more work. It’s all about effective communication and isn’t that what Tufte is getting at?
Looking at the picture/”flow chart” for a lack of a better word on Sci-Fi got me thinking how one might present that online effectively. It seems like you said, it is really only suitable for printout or poster size so that one might see it all at once and not have to worry about scrolling up and down and left and right to view it. One thing that I remember from Clio 1 readings was the concept of the screen and the way we read originating in the idea of reading a scroll. Though we are using high tech computers, the same concept behind getting our information has not changed since ancient times. I guess also the concept behind reading a scroll that we still see dominant today is that we read vertically going down a page. For something like this visual, I wonder why it can’t be presented more effectively reading it from left to right. Moreover, why is it that I feel so disjointed if I have to scroll horizontally on a webpage, and is there a better way to incorporate this way of reading into webpages to communicate more effectively with my audience. When I expanded the picture you posted, it was way too large to effectively read because I had to scroll up and down as well as left and right, but if the author was creating this for the web, they might have gone with a longer design that could have been read from horizontally on the computer screen.