Response to The Form of Facts and Figures thesis by Christian Behrens
Design Patterns for Interactive Information Visualization
Birth of Data Visualization Graphics
The reading began with the introduction of William Playfair, who was a pioneer of information design and data visualization. Playfair - like other pioneers of his time (Charles Minard, Harry Beck, Edward Tufte) - weren't artist but problem-solvers whose goals were to communicate complicated information to the general public.
Introducing: Data-Ink Ratio
Edward Tufte introduced the concept of data-ink ratio. Data-ink ratio was used by Harry Beck when he created the London Underground tube map. Beck, an engineer, created electrical maps and used the philosophy, "reduce to the essential."
Design for All: Isotype Pictographs
Otto Neurath, an Austrian sociologist created Isotype pictograms. Neurath created a thematic map displaying the political situation in the U.S. in 1943. He used icons and color to simulate the number of senators in the United States. He wondered if images and graphic symbols could shape an international, intercultural graphic language that is understood regardless of origin or social class. Isotype, Neurath’s modular system of pictograms he developed together with his colleague and graphic artist Gert Arntz, became his greatest legacy and still represents the blueprint for pictogram systems all over the world. Otto provided the foundations for modern information design: the purpose to educate and to enlighten, to spread information among an audience as big as possible, to make information available, to make it accessible, to make information public.
Design Patterns
Design patterns was originally "coined" by Christopher Alexander, an architect and critic who envisioned a generic and modular “language.” In his book, “A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction”, he provides 250 patterns that are self-contained brief descriptions of design problems and a possible solution that has been proven in the past. The graphic illustration and examples taken from practice becomes a collection termed "Pattern Language." All patterns are connected through hierarchical relationships, creating a higher order structure similar to single worlds of a language. Alexander created his theory for architectural reasons that tanked in the 1980s, but the theory has had a resurgence with the current use of web technology. Its a huge success with object-oriented programming languages such as Java, software development and engineering, and UI design. Martijn van Welie used the theory to create a collection for interaction design pattern library. I think its also evident in UX design, when surveys are done on topics such as the "Z" eye pattern.
Conclusion
Design patterns do not take charge of the look and feel of an application, or of the implementation of a specific corporate design. This is the job of a styleguide which is applied after the functional structure of the application has been determined.
Implementation
I found the reading helpful for our current project. It helped me to visualize how to present my information; for example, I had originally visualized having two maps to show the frog population - one map for the past and another map for the present population. Instead I'll use one map similar to Otto Neurath's U.S. political map - a frog icon to represent the frog populations and two colors, one for past populations and another color for current populations (see the last page of P1 sketches).
