Illuminating complexity with visual design

In the age multidisciplinarity and cross-pollination between domain experts it’s critical to find new ways to share research data and information. We can aid and expedite comprehension through visual translation and visual thinking. In part, this would entail the creation of gigamaps ¹: aesthecially designed visual artefacts that take on the form of richly detailed, large scale images ² representing various levels of textual and visual information. This map essentially captures and communicates the story of research and thought-process that has been—and is being—conducted. In turn, it acts as a centerpiece for collaboration with all the stakeholders. It's a living document that begins it's life in the "room" as a co-created artfact that will change over time as more research is conducted. It's also very natural for it to devolve as much as evolve when new information comes to light and old assumptions are layed bare.

1 Sevaldson, B. (2011). Giga-mapping: visualisation for complexity and systems thinking in design. Nordic Design Research Conferences. retreived from http://ocs.sfu.ca/nordes/index.php/nordes/2011/paper/view/409/256

2 The form the gigamap takes is open. It could be a video, or even a entire room filled with research data. The key point to remember is that whatever form it takes, there has to be a flow. It is, after all, a type of “story”. It must allow for instinctual discovery. The creators and users need to be able to “read between the lines” to discover and tease out new insights.

Design thinking as a Diagram

Design thinking, when it applies to designers who create artefacts (as opposed to experiences), involves a thought process that expands on an original "sketch".  This is just a type of "thinking out loud". Pixel perfect imagery will often get in the way of meaning when it enters the process too early. Clients (and the designers themselves) get caught up in the wrong type of details: i.e. colour, fonts, styles etc.  

Design thinking, regardless of its intended outcome (artefact or experience) is always tested with the key stakeholder group and ideally with an outlier or two. The act of sharing the outcome will often change it. The circular nature of this process is why it works so well to produce polished, effective deliverables.

Visualizing the contents of "The Penguin and the Leviathan" (Y.Benkler)

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I undertook this project as an exercise in visualizing information (within my Masters program at OCADU). Some of the key themes presented themselves as sine-waves: a natural rhythm between the demands of fractured self-interest and cooperation with the "whole". 

I feel, therefore I think

"....we live in a world where we are taught from the start, that we are thinking creatures that feel. The truth is, we are feeling creatures that think..."  Jill Boyle Taylor (b.1959) neuroanatomist

During a literature review on "visual thinking" I'm often distracted by trains of thought that are tangental to my main focus of inquiry. I'm fascinated  (as well as overwhelmed) by the amount of knowledge developed on cognition and the creative ideation process. How do we solve problems? What's my process, what's yours? It's not a private affair any longer -- although we still have to do deep critical thinking on our own -- the real work happens outside of our heads. The work gets done in the room, with as many relevant stakeholders as possible and practical.

The thought process is shared, it's a distributed cognition that relies on the input of others as well as any artefacts we can get our hands on:  the white boards, the sticky-notes, the idea sketches scrolled all over presentation pads.

It feels at once familiar and strange to me. This is how we used to "play" in early grade school. I think it still needs to be considered a type of "play". It may require rigorous attention to detail and process, especially when using cognitive tools to structure information and data. But aside from the brain work, we can't ignore the body work. What does the body know? Or the heart? How we feel informs what we think and do. The holistic approach to problem-solving is natural and so necessary when faced with the complexities of our time.

Big Data, Big Mess, Big Ideas

What's the trouble with big data? It’s obvious of course. The more data you have the more work you need to do to extract any actionable insights. Organizing and categorizing the mess seems to be the most natural first step. But what if in all the culling, parsing, simplifying, curating and aggregating you lose that hidden thread to the real insight? We offload some of this tedious work to powerful CPU’s and elegant algorithms. The more “human” part comes when we try to put the remaining, and hopefully most salient pieces of the puzzle together. If we lost a piece or two in translation so be it. Unless it was an essential ingredient for a potential solution. 

With some types of data, a more robust and fruitful approach is to leave the mess alone. Keep it all. It still needs to be wrangled and organized, but nothing should be thrown out. Instead of an unintelligible mess it becomes a sophisticated well-designed network of data and information on multiple scales. Birger Sevaldson has a name for this kind of data picture: Giga-map 

Applying the the principles of 2D or 3D design (and motion) tames the data and makes it easier for all stakeholders to consume. But it also does something even more important. It allows the designer to expose the data to their visual thinking expertise. In other words, the designerly process of manipulating space and engaging in a kind of structured play and visual experimentation may in fact reveal novel connections and insights that would otherwise have never be discovered. (See giga-map samples here.)

Mind Maps: Expose your thoughts before the research begins

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Mapping stakeholders, objectives, biases, desires. (reversed out of black for display purposes)

Before you stand on the shoulders of giants, think for yourself.

Whatever tools you use, there is no wrong way to do it. That’s the beauty of thinking out-loud by mapping thoughts around your problem space.

These types of maps or cognitive scaffolds should be developed even before you conduct any formal research. Your personal expertise and tacit knowledge can be fragile when buffered by "expert" opinion and the prevailing research. The point is NOT to be correct but to expose your biases and initiate a conversation about them. A personal bias may in fact point to a very interesting gap. So it’s critical to create these maps in an uninhibited, but thoughtful fashion. (This is of course just one tool of many that you can use while engaged in the early stages of a design-thinking exercise.) 

NB: The map segment above was created in Mindnode. It marked the beginning of an awareness program for SUDEP (Sudden, Unexpected Death in Epilepsy).

Stripping away the layers.

When you mash up all the visual notations and experiments when working in the digital space, what is "compressed" can reveal visual insights to your design problem, or just look interesting! ( This image is a screen grab during work-in-progress for the NCI Genomic Data Commons visual identity program.)

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The Transformation of Visual Design

moving Beyond design for design's sake
 

A very successful advertising creative director said to me that once you find that unique "thing" about a product or service, you need to tell a story about it by "flipping it on its ear". What he meant was, that we need to find an arc to our story that is unique, compelling, dramatic and memorable. After all, it's just another car, or brand of beer. That so-called unique thing is probably just a little widget that every other product has in some other form or another. How many different ways can we do the same thing? After 20 years of making the familiar and often intrinsically boring things, weird and exciting all for the sake of advertising drama maybe it's time to think again. Creative provocation has been democratized, it's no longer just in hands of the "creative department". The net is one big messy gallery of amazing, as well as stunningly inane, creative work.

"....too often [professional] visual designers [and creative types of all stripes] get preoccupied with creating the next shiny new thing. They chase clients who encourage them to surpass the latest trend, to find new ways to tell the same old story. These clients and designers produce work that may do well at award shows but often just draw more praise and accolades from their peers rather than from their target audience. [Who, for the most part don't care and hit that little "x" or "skip-ad" button].

We all want to be recognized for our efforts and someone still needs to sell dog food. The packaging matters, as does the TV spot and the interactive website and a myriad of other visual devices that make up that so-called integrated ad campaign. This work pays a lot of salaries and is serious business. But what if these same creative individuals put their process to work on more challenging problems? What would happen if they were to re-channel their creative energy away form producing things that look really cool to producing things that provoke us to think? Not just to think to be contemplative, but to actually think hard about creative new ways to solve some very old, complex problems that have plagued humanity well before Madison avenue existed." -- from the Coda (with edits) of my Master's major research project: OCADU 2014