A1-SethHorrigan
From CS294-10 Visualization Fa08
Good Visualization
Source: Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning, James P. Lantolf, Oxford University Press 2001, pg. 207
Description
Lantolf uses this visualization to demonstrate some common physical gestures used by humans to reinforce verbal communication. For example, (b) is a "potential gesture" that might be found with a sentence like "well, what could I do". (c) is an "unbounded container gesture" that McNeill describes in non-Western cultures indicating the object below the speaker. In these cases the use of a generic human form at the proper angle allows the reader to see exactly what sort of gesture the authors are describing. Also, when movement is intrinsic to the maneuver, as in (d), simple arrows at suffice to illustrate the point when the human form is properly positioned.
Deconstruction
Lantolf employs generic male human forms. By removing any facial features, and avoiding most identifying features of musculature, the artist brings the focus to the gestures themselves. The gestures employ the hands and arms, and thus, it should be sufficient to show just the torso area (the head and neck are unnecessary), but the artist chooses instead to only neglect the area below the waist (also an unnecessary portion of the body). Adding in the neck and head does make it very clear that it is a human, but the image would probably be more focused on the salient features without.
As mentioned above the illustration attempts to present the human form at an angle that best reveals the gesture. In some cases, this is fully facing the viewer. In other cases, it is at a 45 degree angle to the viewer. One of the six images shows only the hand, because the gesture requires just the hand rather than the whole arm. There is an implicit grid in the image created by aligning the elements of the image in two rows of three images each. Each image is approximately the same size, thus creating a regular grid using the whitespace of the graphic.
Each element is referenced by a letter in parenthesis associated with the element by placing it below and to the left of the element. It would probably have been more useful to include a short description of the gesture within the visualization, or to embed each element with the text describing it then provide this comprehensive illustration at the end. On the upside, Lantolf does place the image on the page such that the reader can see the text describing each gesture while also observing the visualization.
Also, as mentioned before, in the case where movement is intrinsic to the gesture, the illustration conveys the movement by the simple use of arrows that use position within the image to associate themselves with the appendages to be moved. The curved lines indicate how the arms are to be moved through the air, and by positioning the different arms at the two extremes of the motion, the full range of the gesture is described clearly.
Bad Visualization
Source: U.S. Patent 5,205,473, Product Design and Development, Fourth Edition, Ulrich and Eppinger, McGraw-Hill 2008, pg. 291
Description
This is a patent for a corrugate cardboard cup. It appears in Product Design and Development as the main example for the process of patenting a new product; thus, it is considered an signal example of a U.S. patent application. I do not know what many of the alphanumeric combinations on the page represent. There is a clear "abstract" describing the product buried in the text to the lower right. Also, towards the top left there is a title for the product in all capital letters. The largest portion of the page is dominated by the sketch of the product with elements of the sketch numbered (although what to what the numbers refer is unclear). This page is designed to clearly identify all the salient points of the product to anyone searching through patents as well as to allow U.S. patent workers to quickly identify a specific patent and identify which patents may be similar or related.
Deconstruction
This patent for a corrugated cardboard cup is sub-optimal in many ways. Many of the problems may be due to the general form required for U.S. patents; however, that does not justify the design, it merely means that it preserves jobs for U.S. patent office workers because they - and lawyers like them - may be the only people who actually know how to read and interpret these.
There are some key factors that cause problems. First, the illustration does not look like a cup. When I first saw the image, I believed it to be a part of a turbine. Others suggest it looks like a pipe of some sort. Some of this is due to the fact that the item is illustrated at an angle where it would not naturally lie - cups are found upright or lying on a side, while this appears to be rendered floating in some gravity-free environment. Also, there are numbers labeling various parts, but there is no legend to explain said numbers. Perhaps they reference explanations in some later part of the document, but I do not know for sure; certainly they are not useful to explain anything in this visualization. Also, each part of the text above is labeled with bracketed numbers (e.g. [56]), but they do not serve a clear purpose. I can only surmise they must correspond to official designations for sections of the patent patent document, although I may be wrong and they may actually explain the product somehow. Again, this requires non-trivial external training just to understand the visualization.
Additionally, the bulk of the information is appears as labyrinthine confusion of numbers and text. Haphazardly, the applicants pile on referenced patents (although there is no indication of how those other patent identifiers relate to this one), and there are agglomerations of numbers like "229/1.5 B" that seemingly indicate something but there is no way to tell what exactly. All in all, the useful part of this visualization is the "Abstract" that actually clarifies what the object is.
In my redesign, I aim to preserve useful whitespace while rearranging the text to present a more logical flow. I hope to remove useless elements and emphasize useful ones, while adjusting the image to represent the object more clearly.
The page is visually divided into three sections: - The very top, containing a bar code to scan the document and various numeric codes identifying this document. - The top, a mish-mash of information about the patent, such as the title, the description, related patents, and the inventor. - Top bottom, dominated by a large sketch of the invention.
Most of the page is divided into two columns by the use of blank space, and the very top is separated from the top by a horizontal bar.
Redesigned
This redesign aims to clarify what the object is by presenting the cup in a natural position and by grouping the title and description with the drawing while placing all three in the most prominent position on the page. I also looked up the various patents referenced and added the title of each along with the reference number to make it clear what they are and - hopefully - how they relate (although I am still unsure about how electrodecomposition of aluminum is useful in making cups - perhaps it is just to explain how bad it is to use aluminum-lined cups).
