CLARIFYING COMPLEXITY
INTRODUCTION:
Complexity in design can either capture a viewer’s attention
or cause a viewer to avoid it.
Complex subjects are becoming increasingly prevalent.
Objective Complexity
refers to the properties inherent in a system, information, or task.
Subjective Complexity
is based on individual perception and relates to a person’s relevant skills,
knowledge, and abilities.
Explaining Complex Concepts:
Complex concepts are information rich.
The challenge for visual communicators is to provide a full
and complete graphical explanation while accommodating the limits and strengths
of the human cognitive architecture.
Cognition & Complexity:
Complex explanation places a great demand on working memory,
the more informational components, the grater the cognitive load.
Mental models and schemas are our mind’s representation of
how different aspects of the world operate.
Coherency: the
consistent logic that makes an explanation meaningful and involve understanding
cause and effect or the steps of a process.
Providing Context:
in a visual explanation, such as showing a big picture view, goes a long way in
helping the viewer understand a concept.
Applying the Principle:
1. Organize information into smaller chunks.
Visual
components getting progressively more complex
Complex
into smaller steps
Divided
into frames and animated
2. Expose parts and components that are usually concealed.
Cutaways
and cross sections
Pictorial devices
to show movement.
3. Reveal Inherent structure of the information.
Which conveys
it’s organizing principle.
Intuitive
understanding of how information is ordered.
Success depends on visual techniques meeting the goal for
which the graphic is created and accommodate prior knowledge.
SEGMENTS AND SEQUENCES
Organize a sequence with a beginning, middle, and end.
Complicated information is too hard to understand when not
broken up into pieces.
When broken up into segments it is easier for people to
store in long-term memory.
Segmenting:
Provide
context-Depicting the big-picture view
Introducing
overriding concept at beginning
Provide
continuity and sequence
Slowly
build on previous concepts
SPECIALIZED VIEWS
Revealing what is physically hidden and depicting
unobservable phenomena through special forms of representations and pictorial
devices are effective ways to portray complex systems.
Structural information can be shown with cutaways, magnifications,
and other interior or views.
Clarifying rather than simplifying complexity is most
effective.
Cutaways, cross sections, and transparent views: remove one
fourth of the surface, or make outside transparent.
Exploded Views: for machine, architectural structure, or
organism with hidden parts
They show the components of an object in their correct
arrangement and usually eliminate any type of occlusion.
Magnification: portray a level of detail that offers a fine
tuned perception of an object. Works well with devices or systems and gives
viewer a holistic view before they dive into the details.
Implied Motion: Representing motion is important for
explaining, workings of a machine, assembly of a product, human movement, and
the dynamics of unseen forces.
Techniques for creating a mental impression of movement:
motion lines, stroboscopic movement, action arrows, and motion blur.
INHERENT STRUCTURE
Visual communication depends on structure and viewers rely
on it as a feature that conveys the nature of a graphic.
A design acquires its form and meaning from the
relationships on which it is based.
Find the conceptual basis of the graphic’s meaning and
express this through visual language.
LATCH: Location- Alphabet- Time- Category –Hierarchy
