Been working on this off and on, and figure it's time to get it out there for feedback.
Visual frameworks are for exploring, organizing and communicating information. They help clarify thinking and generate new ideas. This prototype "deck" aims to capture, categorize and explain what the core visual frameworks are, and how they're used. It's a work in progress... feedback welcomed!
The categories:
Groupings
Affinities, categories, comparisons
Nodes and other nodes - Nodes without explicit connections, order or sequence. Meaning derived from their individual properties and spatial relationship to each other.
Structures
Networks, hierarchies, systems.
Nodes with explicit connections and relationships, where flow is absent, secondary or implied. Meaning is derived from connections.
Flows
Processes, progressions, sequences
Nodes connected in flows of varying complexity. Meaning is derived from order.
Metaphors
Common visual archetypes
Hi James, I learned about you from Dave Gray's tweet (davegray). I like what you're doing with your visual frameworks.
I alert you to Mindset http://www.ms.lt/mindset.html (see especially the diagrams) and our paper "Organizing Thoughts into Sequences, Hierarchies, Networks" http://www.ms.lt/ms/projects/structurekinds/paper052499.html
I'm currently working on 12 questions for a culture of independent thinkers http://www.12questions.org and expressing them artistically, so I'm interested again in visual thinking. My Flickr page is "minciusodas": http://www.flickr.com/photos/50525222@N00/ Peace.
Nancy Duarte does a good job of similar/related groupings in her book slide:ology. Might be interesting to compare and contrast with the work she's done.
Hi James,
This is very interesting, and I've been meaning to come back and comment since I first saw it.
I haven't found a truly satisfying organization/classification and index of diagrams so I applaud your effort to create one. It's hard to be both simple and comprehensive, I think. Here are some of the ones I'm aware of. Your four categories seem useful. It might be interesting to compare to some of these.
Andrew Abela in Advanced Presentations by Design pp. 165-168 (and at http://extremepresentation.typepad.com/blog/2006/10/36_slides_that_.html )
Malcolm Craig in Thinking Visually (14 core diagram types, mapped to themes and business activities in appendices pp. 165-166)
Nancy Duarte in Slide:ology, pp 45-57 (this is nice)
Robert Harris in Information Graphics (encyclopedic but overwhelming)
Robert Horn in Visual Language, pp 81-82 ff
Karl Gude also mentioned (in his most recent VizThinkU seminar) that he's working on a poster of diagram types
David Sibbet for large scale metaphorical pictures
And for more metaphors see some of the new bullet point diagrams "SmartArt graphics" in PowerPoint, of all things!
Is there any specific kind of feedback you're looking for? Here are a few comments and questionis:
+ The brief descriptions are mostly clear and helpful
- I'm not sure the chisel-tip outline style is the best choice for clarity.
. What do the lower case letters mean for the M group? (I saw f and s, there may be more)
. If you want to invite more collaboration on these, put each on a wiki page like the Knowledge Games wiki.
Do you have specific criteria for what frameworks to include or exclude?
Karen