#visual explanations

Too many interfaces for information compilations have suffered from television-disease : thin substance, contempt for the audience and the content, short attention span, and over-produced styling.

For example, a news-broadcast method : as users approach the kiosk, the computer plays a 30-second video of the Director of the Museum welcoming the visitor, then a series of 20-second videos of curators of various galleries introducing their territory, and then the Vice-President for Facilities Management pointing at the telephones and rest rooms. Besides resembling bad public television, such an approach commits a common error : the information architecture mimics the hierarchical structure of the bureaucracy producing the design. This also occurs in the design of magazines, as strongly colored frames delineate each subeditor's turf. Those accented borders and running heads, sometimes the strongest visual statement on the page, are not there to help the reader but rather to replicate the organizational form.

Or imagine a television account of the same material : a murky Potomac River, a bereaved family, and mostly, an airhead announcer talking fast. Such a jumpy story - even if it went on for two minutes, an eternity in television time - would cover less than one-third of the news shown here (which takes six minutes to read aloud). Speech alone is sometimes an altogether inefficient, low-resolution method for communicating information, a point to be considered by teachers who rely on lectures, people running committees, and newscasters. Whenever possible, give your audience words and images written down on paper, even if only to supplement spoken words.

To remember Book 33, you imagine a young pig, a yong animal, nefrens in Latin, the letters ne, which correspond to the number 33 by means of a complex alphanumeric code (you don't want to know).

Story-telling, weak analogies, selective reporting, warped displays, and anecdotes are not enough. Reliable knowledge grows from evidence that is collected, analyzed, and displayed with some good comparisons in view. And why should we fail to be rigorous about evidence and its presentation just because the evidence is a part of a public dialogue, or is meant for the news media, or is about an important problem, or is part of making a critical decision in a hurry and under pressure ?