Less Words, More Meaning

When I was a kid, the technologies I saw every day were things like rotary dial phones, small black and white televisions, and shelves full of books. Things have changed a bit - today I have a cell phone that takes photos and video; TV's have grown as big as a wall, and books have been partially replaced by the Internet. 

What's interesting about newer technologies and newer lifestyles is the prevalent use of imagery. My cell phone creates and displays images, and images are an important component in its user interface. Televisions are everywhere, and the advertisements on them are more image-intensive than ever. Some of the information that we formerly found in books is now found on the Internet, an image-intensive environment. One thing is certain, the prevalent use of imagery is not going away anytime soon, so competency in its use is a must-have for technical communicators.

To evaluate the effective use of imagery in designing communications, I decided to focus my thoughts on the use of two particular types, and icons and illustrations, particularly data visualizations. The overused cliché says that a picture is worth a thousand words, or maybe 60,000 according Dr. Lynell Burmark. 

ICONS

In the case of icons, instructional meaning can be imparted in an instant, providing graphical instruction for viewers. One example is the use of icons in computer interfaces (shown below), another is the use of icons in web navigation.

In either case, the purpose of the icon is to inform the user on how to take action using a graphic to provide the instruction. Icons can be quite effective in enhancing usability . . . or not, as you can see in this screencast, where I review the use of navigational icons used on a business directory website, http://www.logonav.com/:

ICON-ILLUSTRATION HYBRID

Now navlog.com uses icons in their simplest form, and icons themselves are examples of relatively simple images with simple visual messages. Illustrations, however, can be used to convey even more meaning, depending on their sophistication in any number of properties. I found one example, however, where illustrations were used in a creative way to provide a dual function. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute video lecture that explains the ecology of a materials economy. Illustrations are used on its website as elements of visual rhetoric that support the goals of the lecture and as icons that inform the user how to use the site and learn more about the subject, such as in the instance below:

I encourage you to go to the site, watch the 1^st couple of minutes and click on the illustrations to see how they also function as icons. I thought this application was really creative, useful, and effective. Did the graphics replace words in this application? I’m not so sure, but the certainly ADDED meaning in this instance. By the way, I am not necessarily endorsing all of the content in the video, but if you’ve got the time, it is a thought-provoking piece.

DATA VISUALIZATION

If iconic images are elementary in form and meaning, illustrations can transfer the meaning of complex ideas more quickly that many, many words. One genre of illustration is data visualization, which I referred to briefly in my September 13 post. In this form, large amounts of data can be evaluated visually, a process that far quicker, and certainly more interesting, than a textural description of the same information. In my earlier post, I referenced this animated visualization of a decade of U.S. trade deficits. How many words do you suppose that illustration replaced? 

One excellent data visualization is this one, posted at Axxis.org, on web browser market share over time. The center ring is the earliest, and shows the use of early versions of Internet Explorer, Netscape and AOL. The outer and latest rings include the market share of Safari, Opera, and Firefox, as well as the ubiquitous Microsoft browsers. There is a lot of information here that is instantly accessed . . .  I only had to read the key – there are no instructions on the graphic – to be able to write this description of the data.

Perhaps the ultimate data visualization project is Google Earth – how many words would it take to describe all of the features of the surface of the Earth? Using Google Earth, you can see your are of interest in seconds, and understand something about that area quickly by looking at the visual images presented.

Images convey meaning, and their effective use can communicate meaning far faster than words and text. So if effective use of imagery is the key to great communications, is bad imagery the fastest way to ruin your message? That’s an idea I don’t think we want to learn the hard way.

Data of the People, By the People, For the People

So maybe I am a day late and a dollar short, but I recently started an account with the online bookmarking service, Delicious. A latecomer to Web 2.0, I started the account because of the difficulty I experienced managing the many bookmarks in my browser. You can see my Delicious account here. If you look on the right-hand side of the screen, you'll see the number of tags that I have entered to date. "What are tags?” I'm glad you asked.

In Web 2.0 and other computer applications, tags consist of keywords assigned to a data file that describe the corresponding file content. Tags are a form of metadata that is useful when searching across a database. These data artifacts are used in a variety of applications; for instance, I am creating this blog entry in MS Word, and have assigned metadata to this file (which I viewed by clicking “File”, then “Properties”). It looks like this:

In this graphic, you can see some of the metadata is assigned to this file, which may become useful if I need to find this piece at a latter date. In this instance, the keywords identify the content. While I don’t often use this function because my database is small, it provides utility to a company involved in identifying and managing content across one or more organizations. The result is that specific tags can be searched within a database to facilitate retrieval of similar content. Doing so requires that the tags be organized in a way that allows them to be easily found.

Organizing systems of information can be approached in various ways. One source I read cited the Dewey Decimal System as a familiar system for establishing a hierarchy for the information contained within your local library. In the biological sciences, taxonomy of the known species of flora and fauna organizes our knowledge of the plant and animal kingdoms. In the same way, tags placed as metadata on database files can be used to classify and organize the files in a database. By the way, clicking on the tree in the link below gives rise to specific instances of biological classification – go to this link and click on the frog, for instance . . . the Tree of Life is an interesting Data Visualization.

Web 2.0 applications similarly use databases to organize tags, but their use figures more prominently in the functionality of the site. Hierarchy is established by folksonomy, where increased the frequency of tag use by the viewer community elevates the tag in site’s tag hierarchy. This can make for some other interesting data visualizations – Delicious has established a tag folksonomy for my personal account, which uses text color and relative size in a Tag Cloud to denote my most frequent tags. It looks like this:

Delicious’ site-wide tag cloud, as of the wee hours of October 21, 2009, looked like this:

Looking at this tag cloud, it’s easy to see that “design”, “blog”, “video”, and “software” are the most frequent terms used in tags by the Delicious community. This hierarchy is established by data the user’s entered, and implies that that these are the topics that Delicious users are seeking on the Internet. It’s a pretty solid statement about what is important to people. It is data of the people, by the people, for the people.

These hierarchies are not without imperfections. Anything derived from the actions of people is subject to human error – such as when I was looking for information on wrench design and entered the term twiting force instead of twisting force – see my personal tag cloud above.  As such, errors can be incorporated in the database, although this one should get buried at the bottom of the tag cloud pile, unless every other web-surfing mechanic is as bad a typist as I. This illustrates another Web 2.0 principle - the applications get better with increased use. As other tags are elevated in the hierarchy, the impact of my error will become essentially nil.

Other problems occur in folksonomies.  One of them has to do with the idiosyncrasies of the language used for tagging.  In English, we have synonyms. When I searched on lemon, two date-ordered bookmarks that came up had to do with automotive defects and lemonade, two results that are clearly unrelated. 

Searching on bush included items about the former U.S. presidents and a development project with bush in the title, but nothing about plants. See below:

So people aren’t perfect and neither is our language. Other aspects that make folksonomies less than perfect are discussed in this interesting paper by Adam Mathes. But the imperfections do not negate the power of folksonomies – knowing what your audience is thinking can be an important and powerful tool.

In business, reviewing a folksonomy against a firm’s own marketing goals could increase its success. For example, a software giant ready to introduce its Next Big Program could review a folksonomy on its site and find the most common searches are crash, corrupt and security patch. These descriptors could be indicative of the desired qualities for new products as well as an existing quality and public relations problem. A chain of auto repair stores that pushes brake and oil change services can review a car repair site and find “check engine light” and “state inspection” are the most popular tags assigned by site users. How might that inform their marketing plans going forward? A political organization could use folksonomies to gauge the interests of the public. Opening a tag cloud is a whole lot easier than accessing and reviewing website logs on user habits, and is more meaningful because the data and language are input by the collective usership.

So Delicious got me thinking about folksonomies and audience analysis, which resulted in the piece you are reading.  Good technical communication is all about accurate audience analysis. Folksonomies offer a feedback mechanism like no other - Data of the People, By the People, For the People. And imperfect or not, I cannot think of a more direct method for gauging audience interests, a key to creating A Better Message.

Web 2.0 for Gearheads

The sport of motorcycling consists of a number of rider communities. Many folks associate motorcyclists with either rough-and-ready riders with loud bikes, or with testosterone-laden youth who are dangerous to themselves and others - these groups are the most visible to the public. Another group is dedicated to touring and adventuring, and these riders tell the most amazing stories (Advrider is an interesting wiki site in its own right - you don't need to be a gearhead or a motorcyclist to enjoy the filmstrip of high quality photos on the entry page.) Then there is another fringe group -the folks who just enjoy how the experience and the machines come together - the ones like me who think that motorcycles are to land what sailboats are to water.

I started riding in 1979. I now own my seventh motorcycle, and am up around 80,000 or 90,000 career miles. Oddly enough, after owning some larger, more sophisticated bikes, I now ride a lowly Kawasaki Ninja 250 similar to this one, a motorcycle that most motorcyclists sneer at for is small size and even smaller motor. Interestingly, with a motor only nominally larger than a lawn mower, it is still capable of cruising faster than any speed limit in the US, and gets 70 miles to the gallon while doing so. I rode it to work about 90 days this year, a 95-mile per day commute, and some days covered 300 miles. But I digress.

So what does any of this have to do with Web 2.0? Recently, my Ninja left me stranded on I-84. I got it running again, but it would only function at full throttle, a condition that made the 100-mile run home rather interesting. Turned out, it was the carburetors (shown below using a picture from Ninja250.org), which needed to be rebuilt in order to resolve the problem. Three times. Eventually, I got it all back together (one of my other interests is turning wrenches) with some good instructions and advice. That's where Web 2.0 comes in . . .

Initially, I turned to the Kawasaki repair manual, the de facto standard for all things Ninja 250. Written by Kawasaki in the 1980's, the book seems like it is translated from another language. Poorly written, poorly organized, and poorly photographed, it's a usability train wreck. It takes nearly a full page to tell me that the carburetor float height specification is 17 millimeters. Again, I digress . . .  


The most relevant and useful information for my problem was found at ninja250.org, a wiki frequented by other Ninja 250 owners who share experiences, problems, and knowledge about these bikes. I was able to view and print instructions for getting carbs off my bike, rebuilding the units, and tuning the carbs after getting it all back together. I was even able to query other owners about my problem, who then provided advice and encouragement.  

That's what I like about wikis - the user-generated content is often the best available because it is born of the experience of the end users. In this case, the instructions, and photographs were much better than the information provided by the manufacturer. My tenure as a Volvo owner had me surfing another excellent site, brickboard.com, for years. Every wrench-turning friend I know has a favorite wiki for their vehicle.


Wikis are my favorite example of Web 2.0 applications. What's Web 2.0? That's the subject of some debate. In my opinion, Web 2.0 consists of sites that are all about viewers interacting with user-generated data. In the case of the Ninja250.org and Brickboard wikis, the users both benefit from and contribute to the site, which maintains the information in databases viewed by all. Each of these sites have user communities consisting of thousands of individuals, many who post contributions, such as I did recently when I saw an New York Times article on helmet design. This generated a threaded discussion on the matter, each entry of which was copied to my email. That's another feature of Web 2.0 applications- they signal the users based on database events, such as when another user responds to my post.

I will soon post another item to Ninja250.org - pictures of the auxiliary gravity-feed  fuel system I constructed from a turkey baster to diagnose carb dysfunction right on my workbench, something which may make life easier for my Ninja 250 colleagues. My postings are examples of the kind of user-generated data that makes wikis dynamic and useful. You won't find Kawasaki's tech writers publishing the turkey baster idea anytime soon.


So if Web 1.0 consists of web sites we read like magazines, then Web 2.0 consists of applications that we both read and contribute to. Tim O'Reilly at O'Reilly Media is widely credited with promoting the term Web 2.0 in 2005. In his article, he elaborates on the principles that are common to Web 2.0 sites, indicating that Web 2.0 applications are the ones that get better with increased use, and conversely, that these applications consist of data and operations that must be maintained daily in order to function. Mr. O'Reilly's doesn't give a bona fide definition, rather his ideas are best defined by a table that he included in the article:



Mr. O'Reilly later refined his definition as:

'Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them. (This is what I've elsewhere called "harnessing collective intelligence.")'

This definition references an important concept - computing services will not be hosted on our own computers or on a dedicated machine on the other end, but by the software interface that exists somewhere in between. This software will capitalize on data derived from users. This is the heart of the interactivity I experienced on the wikis I described above, and will continue to define and shape our collective web experiences.

Some are saying that we are moving on to Web 3.0. From what I've read, Web 3.0 might be the web that evolves from interactive to proactive, the web that could assist you by learning patterns about your behavior and choices. For instance, by recording your internet search habits, Web 3.0 applications could return customized results for different individuals even though those individuals input the same search terms. It could track your preferences and tell you where to take your spouse for dinner and a movie. Maybe it could become the web that tells you what to do. And if you are designer, how do you design for that?

This kind of pro-activity seems fascinating to some, but a bit big-brotherish to me. It seems that privacy issues might loom large in this model. However, I might become less skitish if some Web 3.0 application could rebuild my carbs FOR me.

A Better Law Firm SIte?

Some recent soul-searching about my blog has me thinking that my entries are too long, so I’ll keep this one short and sweet.

In my day job, I was surfing the websites of certain law firms that have environmental practices. I am in a related field, law firms are some of our clients.

In my opinion, most law firm websites tend to be similar. Of the 20 or more sites I visited that day, most were reasonably well done with useful layout, design, and aesthetics, tending towards something that is supposed to be confidence–inspiring or just rather fancy. Most used a lot of text, and most do not look all that different from each other.



In my surfing I came across the one above; I thought it was a bit different. The visual content and the coordinated messages on the home page identified clearly what the firm thought its strong points were, and didn’t wait for me to read a lot of text to get the point across. Here’s the link, look at the changing messages. Let me know if you agree.

http://www.williamskastner.com/