A core concept of activity theory is the irreducible triad called mediation. To understand mediation, it makes sense to focus on each consitutent part (human, visualization, goal) without losing track of a global view of the irreducible dynamics between them. To me, the concept of levels of activity is inherently about understanding human motivation, aka the [...]
Q: All these terms, mental models, schemas, coordination, etc. they are pretty fuzzy and not definite. I believe that to understand how InfoVis works we must understand how the brain works. A: First, understanding a phenomenon often involves multiple levels of description and explanation (e.g. the famous AI researcher David Marr proposed three levels of [...]
1. Telling stories using visualization - visual primacy It is almost impossible to talk about InfoVis without mentioning Tufte. His four books beautifully illustrate how to explain and present complex data using visual means. These books are certainly for designers, more specifically, info graphics designers. The approach can be summarized as: tell good stories with [...]
An interesting talk, but the main idea is not new. Gibson has rejected 20+ years ago the idea that vision is simplest when the eyes are fixed as if they are a camera taking a static snapshot to be transmitted to the brain. Visual information does not arrive at the eyes in the form of [...]