word & image

This page looks at working with graphs, charts and illustrations to convey information online.

It covers -

• introduction
• fonts
• visualisation
• colours and symbols
• branding
• reading the net offline
• language

We have pointed to some writing about the use and abuse of web statistics in our Metrics & Statistics guide.

     Introduction

A glorious mix of eye-candy and insights about the use of charts, maps and graphics for conveying information online and in print is found three books from Edward Tufte:

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, the classic on statistical charts, graphs and tables

Envisioning Information, design strategies for complex information, high resolution displays, layering, hierarchies and other issues

Visual Explanations: Images & Quantities, Evidence & Narrative, interface design, scientific visualisation, graphics for decision making, narrative and animation

They are published by Graphics Press (Cheshire, Connecticut) and available in quality Australian bookshops. A precursor is highlighted in Design & Science: The Life and Work of Will Burtin (London: Lund Humphries 2008) by Roger Remington & Robert Fripp.

Information Architects (New York: Graphis 1997) has pages of glorious - though arguably often disfunctional - graphics from designers for print and online media. It is by Richard Saul Wurman, author of the frenetic Information Anxiety (Indianapolis: QUE 2001). There is a deeper study in Semiology of Graphics: Diagrams, Networks, Maps (Madison: Uni of Wisconsin Press 1983) by Jacques Bertin.

Information Graphics (London: Thames & Hudson 1998) by Peter Wildbur & Michael Burke, Digital Diagrams: How To Design & Present Statistical Information Effectively (New York: Watson-Guptill 2000) by Trevor Bounford and Graphic Design History: A Critical Guide (New York: Pearson Prentice Hall 2008) by Johanna Drucker & Emily McVarish may stimulate thought.

Web Cartography: Developments & Prospects (London: Taylor & Francis 2001) edited by Menno-Jan Kraak & Allan Brown has a companion site; the chapter by Jeroen van den Worm on Web Map Design in Practice is of particular interest.

Susan Kare's icons site is a treat from the creator of Apple and Microsoft icons. There are informative case studies about her work and that of other designers in Steve Caplin's Icon Design: Icons in Computer Interface Design (New York: Watson-Guptill 2001).

Claims of 'banner blindness' - viewers simply not recognising banner ads, with advertisers accordingly resorting to banners that are ever larger and more strident - are examined in Just How 'Blind' Are We to Advertising Banners on the Web?, a small-scale but suggestive empirical study by Michelle Bayles.

     Fonts

Among empirical studies of the readability of online fonts and user perceptions of their 'character' we recommend

A Comparison of Popular Online Fonts: Which is Best and When? - an account of research by Michael Bernard, Melissa Mills, Michelle Peterson & Kelsey Storrer

Legibility & Comprehension of Onscreen Type: Comparing the Legibility and Comprehension of Type Size, Font Selection and Rendering Technology of Onscreen Type (PDF) by Scott Chandler

Which Fonts Do Children Prefer to Read Online? - earlier research by Bernard, Mills, Talissa Frank & Jan McKown

Determining the Best Online Font for Older Adults - an account by Bernard, Mills & Corrina Liao

Readability of Body Text in Computer Mediated Communication: Effects of Type Family, Size and Face study by Joel Geske

     visualisation

Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think (San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann 1999) is a demanding but exciting set of essays edited by Stuart Card and Ben Schneiderman.

Colin Ware's Information Visualization: Perception for Design (San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann 1999) is strong on physiology .... not to be sniffed at, since at least some of the visitors to your site will be colourblind.

Robert Horn's Visual Language: Global Communication for the 21st Century (Bainbridge Island: MacroVU 1998) is an introduction by one of the fathers of hypertext to integrating text and images.

Designing Visual Interfaces: Communication Oriented Techniques (New York: Prentice Hall 1994) by Kevin Mullet & Darrel Sano is an excellent introduction to the theories behind the design of user interfaces and their consequences.

     colours and symbols

The normalisation of the online population means that designers and site owners who seek to address users across borders need to be aware that not everyone shares a common 'iconographic vocabulary' or colour sense.

Put simply, not all people recognise particular symbols and the colours preferred in one culture may have quite different values in another. Black, for example, is often associated in the West with death and white denotes purity. In Japan and some other markets white has traditionally been associated with death..

Some studies about cross-cultural issues are highlighted later in this profile. Two starting points are Global Graphics: Color (Gloucester: Rockport 2000) by Cheryl Cullen and Global Graphics: Symbols (Gloucester: Rockport 2000) by Jared Brown & Anistatia Miller.

     branding

Questions of online/offline branding are noted in the Marketing guide elsewhere on this site.

For a cogent overview turn to Wally Olins' Corporate Identity: Making Business Strategy Visible Through Design (Boston: Harvard Business School Press 1989). Like him or loathe him, Olins - like Nielsen - is a point of reference in most discussion about image and the brand.

Despite hoopla about e-commerce and online brands there is surprisingly little substantial writing about images and online corporate identity. Among introductions for offline promotion we recommend Marc English's Designing Identity: Graphic Design As a Business Strategy (Gloucester: Rockport 2000) which offers short case studies and a brief discussion of why it's important, rather than step by step guidelines.

There's a similar mix of case studies and general principles in Joseph Bereswill's Corporate Design: Graphic Identity Systems (New York: PBC 1987) and Hugh Aldersey-Williams' Corporate Identity (London: Lund Humphries 1994). The three volume Letterhead & Logo Designs: Creating the Corporate Image (Gloucester: Rockport 1990-94) by Lisa Walker & Steve Blount is eye-candy territory, useful as a demonstration that ultimately there's not that much new under the sun, online or otherwise.

For a more analytical and historical study we recommend Per Mollerup's Marks of Excellence: The History & Taxonomy of Trademarks (London: Phaidon 1999).

The Power of Logos: How to Create Effective Company Logos (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold 1997) by William Haig perhaps promises more than it can deliver but will stimulate thought. Virginia Napoles' Corporate Identity Design (New York: Van Nostrand 1988) is a useful supplement about the design process for readers of Olins.

A detailed profile on intellectual property and other aspects of trademarks (including logos) is here.

     reading the net offline

As noted in the e-Publishing guide elsewhere on this site, it is clear that many users are relying on the net for the delivery of documents - eg accessing HTML pages and PDF documents on the web and receiving PDF, MS Word and other publications via email or instant messaging systems - but are then reading printouts of those documents.

Reasons for 'reading offline' vary. They include -