xBlog: The visual thinking weblog
4th June 2008

Lance Wyman & Wayfinding Systems

“A Wayfinding system incorporates branding, signs, maps and directional devices that tell us where we are, where we want to go, and how to get there. An effective wayfinding system can add an important dimension to the image of a museum, a transit system, an airport, an office building, or an entire city. It can be designed as a savvy helper that gives information and direction to people in a clear, appropriate, user friendly way, to assist them in finding their way into, through, and out of an environment.” (Thanks Chris Glass!)

posted in Information design, Mapping | Permalink | Comments Off

4th June 2008

Visualizing large graphs: Graph drawing of matrices in the University of Florida Collection

“Graph visualization is a way to discover and visualize structures in complex relations. What sort of structures are people who do large scale computation studying? We can get a glimpse by visualizing the thousands of sparse matrices submitted to the University of Florida Sparse Matrix collection. The resulting gallery contains the drawing of graphs as represented by 1890 sparse matrices in this collection. Each of these sparse matrices (for rectangular matrix, an augmented matrix is formed first) is viewed as the adjacency matrix of an undirected graph, and is laid out by a multilevel graph drawing algorithm.”

posted in Data visualization, Information design | Permalink | Comments Off

4th June 2008

Richard Saul Wurman interview

“With the publication of his first book in 1962 at the age of 26, RSW began the singular passion of his life: making information understandable. He chaired the International Design in Aspen in 1972, the first Federal Design Assembly in 1973, followed by the National AIA Convention in 1976, before creating and chairing TED (Technology/Entertainment/Design) conferences from 1984-2002. He is the current Chair of the TEDMED Conferences. A B.Arch and M.Arch 1959 graduate with highest honors from the University of Pennsylvania, Mr. Wurman’s nearly half-century of achievements includes the publication of his best-selling book Information Anxiety and his award winning ACCESS Travel Guides. Each of his 81 books focus on some subject or idea that he personally had difficulty understanding.”

posted in Graphic design, Information architecture, Information design | Permalink | Comments Off