Lisa Jevbratt, Interface: Every (IP)
In his article “Visualization Criticism—The Missing Link between Information Visualization and Art”, Robert Kosara analyzes the gamut of data-based visualization between the two poles of pragmatic and artistic visualization. On pragmatic visualization techniques, he writes: “Pragmatic visualization techniques are also often general, and can be applied to many different data sets. This is considered a strength, because the user can gain experience with the method and apply that to different data, rather than having to start from scratch again.” The opposite is true for artistic visualization, which communicates a specific concern, using data as a proof that the concern is real. As opposed to pragmatic visualization, which aims for generalization, artistic visualization aims for specificity in the relationship between representation and subject matter.
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I recently spoke to a student about the goals of the One Laptop per Child user interface, and was surprised at how difficult it was to answer the question as to how I felt about taking a ‘universal’ design approach. I was quick to defend my belief in universal design as a means by which to broaden access to, or appreciation of, any designed object, acknowledging that design is necessarily subjective. Yet on further reflection, is universality ever achievable? Is it presumptuous, as designers, to think that we could design an interface that would be universally understandable?
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Curtis Wong of Microsoft’s Next Media Research group describes the architecture of information in three layers of what he calls a contextual pyramid: Engagement, context, and reference. Engagement draws the recipient in, context offers an explanation of the information source, and reference gives the ability to draw conclusions and connects to related resources. Metaphors and analogies are rhetorical devices which are used most often at the level of engagement, and can apply to concepts expressed through any form or medium.
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Hiroshi Sugimoto, Radio City Music Hall (1978)
In the past few months, I’ve come across a variety of work dealing, in one way or another, with compression of time as a method for visualization. Despite the wide range of work, there are particular generalizable attributes which I will identify.
The first few examples are time lapse renderings, in which the view remains fixed as all information gathered over a period of time is displayed simultaneously.
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Over the years, a wealth of data has become available online. With the accessibility of this raw information comes the incentive to understand its relevance or significance. Beyond making it engaging and interesting, there is, more than ever, a need for providing interpretation and perspective. Fundamentally, interpretation is a form of information control.
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