Mar 17, 2009

Mar 17, 2009h in Graphic Facilitation, Sustainability, Visualizing by

SunWheel - Visualizing SustainabilityMerc Martinelli—CEO of a new startup, Verdafero, focusing on green business.—sent me a link to an incredible website that has collected 138 illustrations of sustainability concepts. See Computing for Sustainability’s Visualizing Sustainability, a full panorama from simple to complex, mapping onto every conceivable base map. Here is a sample; visit the website for lots more.

I’ve contended for a long time that a sustainability mindset requires systems thinking, and that systems thinking requires visual thinking—even if the display is just between your ears. You can’t understand relationships if you don’t have some display structure to illustrate the elements that are in relationship. This collection is a great testimonial to that assumption.

 

Mar 14, 2009

Mar 14, 2009h in Mental Models, Sustainability, Visualizing by

Colin Ware provided the keynote at this year’s VizThink conference in San Jose and a follow-up workshop on “How Do Patterns Structure Visual Thinking.” He’s a researcher from the University of New Hampshire and quite academic, but in his talk I found validation for a growing consensus that intention is the key player in perception.

He began with an inquiry into the primary uses of visual language. I took a lot of notes, which you can read here if you click to magnify. But then he went to the findings from his research.

ColinWareJournalPage - Intention Guides Visual Perception

 

Read more…

Sep 25, 2008

Sep 25, 2008h in Online Tools, Visualizing by

I finally had time to look at the comic book Scott McCloud created to explain Google Chrome. It’s a tour-de-force well worth the read, regardless of your interest in browsers, Google, or the Internet. It is a terrific example of how powerful the partnering of words and graphics are in what Bob Horn calls the “tightly integrated visual language” of the 21st century.

Click here to see for yourself:  Google Chrome Comic.

Googlechrome2