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Wurman, R.S. (2001). Chapter 8: Finding things. In _Information
anxiety 2_ (p. 155-178). Indianapolis, IN: Que.
On Tue, 13 Nov 2001, Ryan Douglas Scott wrote:
> All this talk about concentric ring representations of information is
> puzzling to me. What is the value of this model? So there are different
> forms of information, and Wurman divided it into five levels. I could
> create a similar dilineation, but I'm not sure of the point. Like others
> I found this chapter lacking. It wandered around quite a bit.
I found it puzzling as well. You can categorize types of information,
but what does that get you? Seems to me it just gives useless
prioritization to arbitrary distinctions. Information Science does
itself a disserve by trying to limit information. Consider instead a
model of information where information is the byproduct of perception:
when something perceives, the thing that lands on the perceive is
information. This accounts for perturbation of the perception of that
which is perceived (as in I see a green sweater and someone else sees
a brown one (that happens to me a lot with a particular shade of
drab)) as well as the recursive looping that ought to be present in
the data->information->knowledge->wisdom model (my knowledge,
transmitted to you is information for you). What makes a particular
instance of information important is entirely context dependent, not
whether it is something we see, something we talk about or something
we get from the media.
The beginning of the article, prior to the rings, had some appeal.
There were several nice examples that demonstrate some valuable (to
me) general notions. Maps are artifacts or collections of artifacts
that show relationships amongst and between pieces of information.
Relationships help us make comparisons. Comparisons are how we
synthesize new knowledge.
It's refereshing that Wurman states: "To comprehend something
yourself, you have to have the impetus to make it understandable."
Understanding is not a passive act.
> The one
> thing that seemed interesting was the idea of the Hyperbolic Tree. I was
> wondering if anyone has had experience using the Inxight Tree Studio
> software that was used to create the illustration on page 169? I was also
> wondering if anyone has visited a website with a site map that uses this
> sort of representation?
I've not used that particular software but I have messed with some
java tools that will make hyperbolic trees that show relationships in
a thesaurus. While it is cool to play with, I'm not sure how much
value it is realy has. In the specific sense of the thesaurus the see
and go thing does provide context very nicely and that has definite
value.
The language in the "See & Go Manifesto" was a bit hyperbolic for my
tastes. The recommendations were mighty general and did not take
proper account of context of use
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Contact:cdent@burningchrome.com
Wurman, R.S. (2001). Chapter 8: Finding things. In _Information
anxiety 2_ (p. 155-178). Indianapolis, IN: Que.
On Mon, 12 Nov 2001, Sonia Gupta wrote:
> I thought this article was interesting, but it alluded to the concept of
> Information Anxiety in only a few lines. And that too only for the case of
> search engines that either return too much or too little information (p.
> 172). I would have liked to know more about how we experience information
> anxiety in normal everyday life, other than while using search engines.
I think information anxiety is a misnomer, or perhaps a misdiagnosis.
Rao, going on about out roots, says, "It is in fact natural for us
humans to process large amounts of information." Dealing with search
engine results is an adaptation of an existing, innate, skill. If
someone finds that they can't deal with the results as given then
getting the results is not particulary important to them. The volume
of information that is accessible gives the impression that it must be
important by sheer mass, but it isn't really, is it?
Sometimes it is, and then we spend the time and energy to figure out
how to get to it. We "have the impetus to make it understandable".
Once we have the impetus, several things will happen: we'll learn to
deal with the results, and the methods for dealing with the results
(once we know what they are) will become more effective.
> Another thought regarding the 'Valence Project' being developed by Ben Fry
> to visualize text in 3 dimension (p. 161). I didn't understand the
> practical application of this project. How are they going to use the
> results of this project? Do they want to know which words are being used
> most frequently in books? And do they want to use that information to
> improve the quality of search engines? What other purposes can they use
> the results of this project for? Any thoughts?
I'm completely speculating, but word proximity and frequency analysis of
documents helps to indicate similarity between two documents. If you
map two valence images of documents you may be able to see
relationships or similarities. Clustering and overlaps that you didn't
know about.
The gzigzag project I mentioned on this list a while ago has an
interface that's quite similar to the valence interface.
I'm basically with everyone else: I think this particular chapter was
sort of a "hey, here's some cool stuff that is somehow related to
maps".
Information visualization is fully buzzword compliant out here at
Supercomputing. Every booth has some kind of demonstration of a neat
way to take huge volumes of info and stick it in a picture. IU's booth
has a display with a pixel density of 400 dots per inch. A usual
screen is 72 (if I'm remembering correctly). It's incredibly to look
at. It can be helpful in visualizing things like the human genome
which has so many pieces of information that normal screens simply
can't show it: there's not enough granularity.
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Hansen, Y. M. (1999). Visualization for thinking, planning and problem
solving. In R. Jacobson (Ed.), _Information design_ (p. 193-220).
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Extensive discussion of how graphical displays of information help
people learn, both as groups and individuals. An advertisement for the
Graphical Tools system.
-=-=-
Hansen seems to suggest that people have trouble adapting to dealing
with graphical info. I find this surprising since it is innate. Or at
least that's what I've been led to believe.
Supercomputing 2001 was very much about the graphical display of large
bodies of apparently random information. As Hansen says such displays
can reveal interrelationships and clustering previously unconsidered.
A common example is temperature or humidity in very large bodies of
air.
All of these discussions of representation roll back to synthesis and
integration.
It is apparent that this discussion is related to Damasio's version of
qualia as summarized by Ray at SC01. The graphical diagrams allow the
discernment of patterns which are resistant to discovery and definition
but are strongly inhered with meaning. From Hansen's text: "The mind
can sense an underlying order within an apparent chaos by detecting
emerging patterns, noting the repetition of an entity or concept, and
forming a category of something that has not yet been labeled. The
effect of a label is to eliminate and exclude whatever doesn't
fit..."
Here things get a bit difficult to keep straight because of imprecise
definitions. While I agree that a label is constraining, so too is a
category. A category eliminates burdensome detail and allows a handle
on a cluster of information.
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Rogers, R. & Marres, N. (2000). Landscaping climate change: A mapping
technique for understanding science and technology debates on the
world wide web. _Public understanding of science 9, 141-163.
-=-=-
Continuing a theme...
p. 145:
searcher relies on "judgement and past experience" in
selecting, clicking through and finally patiently reading certain
sources of information.
This is essentially the same as category generation. Vague notions of
judgement and past experience are used to infer if the current thing
fits in an existing model. That fitting can be very fuzzy--a "like"
instead of "same as" relationship.
This is also the same as a craftsperson evaluating, using crafty
knowledge, tools and materials in the "I can just tell it is good"
sort of way.
The overall usability of a tool is not simply a function of the
efficiency with which a task is accomplished. Satisfaction with use is
also important. Thus the craftsperson's desire to use a personal tool:
it is a part of the feeling of category generation.
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Horn, R. E. (2001). Knowledge mapping for complex social messes. A
presentation to the Foundations in the Knowledge Economy at the David
and Lucille Packard Foundation, July 16, 2001. Available at: http://www.stanford.edu/~rhorn/SpchPackard.html
-=-=-
Demonstrates Knowledge Maps as a way of providing an overview of
complex social problems. In some sense these are augmentation tools in
the style of of Doug Engelbart. "Wicked problems" are exactly the sort
of problem he wants to solve.
These tools appear to play on the human ablility to discern and absorb
connective patterns where there isn't necessarily any algorithmic
pattern. Here again we have the fuzziness of categories, the spark of
qualia and the general idea of knowledge in a glance.
It's not surprising then that the apparent primary goal of
augmentation oriented people is to provide knowledge displays of some
kind. Dynamic Knowledge Repositories (DKRs), knowledge maps,
hyperscopes.
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Bradford, P. (1996). Peter Bradford. In R.S. Wurman, _Information
architects (p. 62-75). Zurich: Martin Pedersen & Richard Saul
Wurman.
Visual demonstration of the power of different representations for
showing the essence of something. Depending on what we want to show we
can emphasize or deemphasize something by what we choose to include in
the representation. Because we, as humans, are good at identifying the
target domain in an "incomplete" modelling domain the highlighted
point does not obscure the big picture but instead clarifies it.
Interestingly I find Bradford's graphical style a little too simple.
I'm not able to identifying the target domain in my own collection of
concepts. The arrogant fellow in me would like to think that is
because my internal representations are so very detailed that
Bradford's simple representations don't relate. That's probably not
the case. It may be that my style of abstraction is simply different
from what Bradford chooses.
This indicates how powerful a computer could be in education. If we
present a learner with a collection of information, a few sample
representations and tools to create alternate representations the
learner can spend some time experimenting with the representation
until they experience their own personal eureka and see it.
Even a simple "show it to me another way" button could be worthwhile.
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