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"The structure of an outline has the virtue of making explicit the progress of an analysis. It gives the leading propositions due prominence, and exhibits the order and relation of the parts of a complicated argument." - Mortimer Adler : http://www.thegreatideas.org/25w/Aspen-Adler_1.pdf Outlining was so much in his blood that it had to seek further expression. And that it did. It resulted in what must be the two most monumental projects of outlining ever accomplished. The late 1940s were devoted to the construction of the Syntopicon, the ana-lytical index and guide to the Great Books of the Western World... An outline is in some respects like a map. Both present analytical and systematic plans of a large area. For this both require some principle for reducing a larger and more complicated area into a smaller and simpler plan...we need principles of organization and articulation that will reveal ways of entry into these vast fields of knowledge and guide us through them. The Syntopicon and Propaedia ('and GreatMap') supply us with such guides, plans and maps. By Otto Bird http://www.nd.edu/~pls/programma/plshistory/APPENDIX.htm

Mapping Our Thoughts to Words : http://www.searchengineguide.com/hotchkiss/2005/0627_gh1.html "I Love to Search but Words Get in the Way".

When designing a visualisation, the designer uses his or her set of mental schemata to elaborate a visual metaphor (see number 91 (http://www.infovis.net/printFicha.php?rec=revista&num=91&lang=2) ) that will be implemented into the visualisation. If the mental schemata of the receptor of the visualisation do not match in some way to those of the designer it's more than possible that the receptor won't understand the visualisation or will not be able to extract all of its possibilities. :http://www.infovis.net/printMag.php?num=168&lang=2 It appears that the concept of [topographic] map and the mental schemata associated to it are very widespread. Maybe this is due to the ubiquity of maps, known since very ancient times and used throughout many centuries. According to others it's because they constitute a natural mataphor for the human beings that have evolved in a spatial environment that required a knowledge of terrain and space in order to survive. In the end, it seems that decoding a map, be it spatial or thematic, results quite natural for most of the human beings, requiring just very little training.

Project Spacecast is a aimed at the development and understanding of the methods available for visualizing non-spatial information spatially. Sara from Sackler http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~sara/html/research/spacecast/spacecast.html is developing a framework to investigate if and how particular spatial concepts like distance, region and scale can help in organizing information for more efficient access.

This map morphs the 2 candidates faces together based on their % of the votes in each state. (First use of Blogger photo upload, doesn't use Flickr in any way)

Signage & Wayfinding examples http://www.gplusa.com/index.cfm?PID=2897&PIDList=2894,2897&ServiceServiceID=3&ACT=Display&HasG=Y and Interactive portfolio.