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Show what you mean

“Saying what you mean” may be a great way to build a strong friendship. It is not, however, a great way to build website navigation, or a presentation visual.

It is not that words are lame. They are wonderful, precise, meaningful. But they do not provide the immediate understanding visuals carry. Reading is a complex, fairly lengthy process. It involves a sequence of steps: seeing + pattern matching + pattern interpretation. Reading is also linear in nature. is perfect  this of example a sentence fact this (This sentence is a perfect example of this fact). Finally, reading requires focus, attention. One cannot read a book, and drive in busy traffic (this kind learning cost me $2600, enjoy your savings).

Seeing, however, is simpler and quasi-immediate. immediate grasp of the metric; meaning of the metric conveyed at the same time as its value; low attention requirement to observe the figure. Watching is also more parallel, and requires less attention.

These differences are the reasons why maps are visual and not long-winded tales of all the ways to go to all the places. These are also the reasons why fighter jets, military helicopters and most civil airplanes have kept analog displays in the cockpit in the Digital Age. And these are the reasons why I really liked a nice little feature in the otherwise fairly modest North Arizona University website:

Now, millions of websites have a map link. But most still link to maps through words like “map” or all-times-favorite “directions” or the ever-so-dreadful “click here”. Some will have a picture of a map linking to the full-fledge picture map or its Google, Yahoo, or Live mashup bread. But few personalize it to the point of making the link a tidbit of the real map. Anyway, this one triggered the thought, and hence deserved the credit. So there you go. Thanks to North Arizona University

Now, there is a limit to the power of images, and it is the meaning people put on them. If you show a knife to a cook, it is full of possibilities. It is a tool. It evokes to do’s, etc. Now, if you show the same knife to students, they may think “Scream” trilogy. So as you can see, images may be powerful ways to convey simple messages, within the confines of agreed upon context, amongst known viewers. But images are also a wonderful way to convey the wrong message, very powerfully

This is a funny and interesting topic, which we will keep for next time. In the meantime, to make a point of living by what we just told, let’s summarize our point visually:

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