When it comes to identifying or memorizing factual data, it is generally accepted that people find pictures far easier to remember than text. However In current GUIs everything looks the same, and finding a particular file is as difficult. The idea is to allow people to use the visual sense to identify files and objects in order to improve computer navigation and real-world organization. http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2004/11/23/distinctive_icons_provide_desktop_scenery.htm The system "exploits the fact that appearance is efficiently learned, searched and remembered, probably more so than file names. Psychological research has shown that searching for a picture among other pictures is faster than searching for a word among other words."

Examples for each of the Thinking Map styles; Brace Map Bridge Map Bubble Map Circle Map
Double Bubble Map Flow Map Multi-Flow Map Tree Map http://www.mapthemind.com/thinkingmaps/thinkingmaps.html#themaps

GreatMapViewer is an information map viewing Internet application that can be embedded into a personal blog template or Web page, and displayed in any modern Web browser. As an alternative to embedding it in a page, you can launch it in a separate pop-up window. With some simple editing of an external XML configuration file different functionality can be provided (similar to http://www.blogbox.com/photoblox.php ).

Factal (snowflake) examples; http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/photos/photos.htm including facets and branching.

"Never before has there been so much to choose from, and never before has it been more important to eliminate most of these choices." - Gerry McGovern
“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.”— Charles Mingus (from http://www.lukew.com/resources/quotes.asp )
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”— Hans Hofmann
“Good designers can create normalcy out of chaos; they can clearly communicate ideas through the organizing and manipulating of words and pictures.”— Jeffery Veen, 2000
“[Leonardo Da Vinci] combined art and science and aesthetics and engineering, that kind of unity is needed once again.”— Ben Shneiderman, 2002
"A map eliminates everything that is overwhelming and superfluous". - RW