Interesting, Easy, Beautiful, True?

Very interesting thought! And as always, you’re articles fit right in the centre of you diagram.

Hi, I am an editor for the Free Pint group. I am especially interested in how information is used and I particularly enjoy your info visualization ideas. I commission short pieces for Free Pint and would be delighted if you would consider contibuting a short piece for our FUMSI magazine. Many of our subscribers are interested in info visualisation, but do not have the skills.
Regards
Joanna Ptolomey
Editor FUMSI ‘USE’ Practice

I think this belongs in the center of itself, and this pretty much sums things up.
Exceptionally good work, keep it up!
Best,
Walter

Walter Vannini
Translating Don Norman, Jef Raskin and Jakob Nielsen for the sheer, unadulterated hell of it, for a country of self-proclaimed designers

Hi David,

I’d be tempted to swap round “form” and “function”. While there are of course examples of information design with form+integrity, and function+interestingness – you can only show four of the six possible combinations of two, and I think those are the two that occur least often.

Thinking about the terms in their adjective form (Form=Beautiful, Interestingness=Interesting, Intrgrity=True, Function=Useful), I come up with these combinations:

Beautiful + Interesting = Attention-grabbing
Interesting + True = Informative
True + Useful = Applicable
Useful + Beautiful = Desirable

So in set notation,

Successful information design
= Beautiful ∩ Interesting ∩ True ∩ Useful
= Attention-grabbing ∩ Applicable
= Informative ∩ Desirable.

I don’t think anyone would argue with that! ;-)

I think that interestingness is redundant. The process of information design is blind to the information being conveyed. It is a process which operates on data which may be interesting or not to produce something for an audience. Surely if your audience is a random collection of people, you should hunt for data they will find interesting when presented out of the blue.

In essence, successful information design shouldn’t generate interesting information, it should use it.

You’re missing simplicity.

Its got to be obvious. Otherwise you lose the punters.

I agree with Cory O’Connor.

Information gains interestingness train in use. And varies on context. Some data can be very interesting for specific group of people/accurate time of presentation (i.e. infographic with death rate of swine flu would be much less interesting if you would show it in two years from now).

Actually if you have time to read. To understand ontic status of information I would suggest you reading “Memoirs of a Space Traveller” by StanisÅ‚aw Lem. In one of voyages he’s analysing status of information with some very surprising conclusions.
If you don’t want to check S/F book :-), you may try with some U. Eco books in order of importance to the topic: “Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language”, “A Theory of Semiotics”, “The Limits of Interpretation”.

One last word I love and admire your work. Thank you for sharing, have fun =).

With best wishes,

Interesting, Easy, Beautiful, True?

Easy yes. Trite certainly.

An exceedingly boring and poorly conceived rehash, using Venn diagrams — a mode of representation from the 1880′s no less. Ridiculously trite and if you are getting paid for design, my God!

Ack! Strike the reference to “useless” and substitute “rubbish”. The intended point still holds, I think.
And never never make comments while drinking your lunch.

I find it interesting (and spot-on) that the areas adjacent to “success” are rubbish, useless, boring, and ugly.

@sarah — yes, I was going to make the same point (but not the rubbish comment!)

integrity + function = traditional infovis
interestingness + form = exclusively art

4-way venn diagrams are dangerous!!

I am missing the question after the relationship between the 4 factors. They are connected, something which is missing in the graph – see the discussion regarding “form follows function”.

don’t listen to the haters with the switch to a different 4 way venn. if your audience is new data vis people, keep it simple. A graphic is not supposed to represent all data just the data you want to and can convey. Tailor your diagram to your audience. you totally did. Love the graphic, keep it up!

You have a typo, “meaingful”.

@david – “really opens it up” – like a fine wine, eh? :)

I work in information design (as opposed to ‘pure’ design) and I guess I’m not suggesting that interestingness is not important. I’m just saying that ‘beauty’ and ‘interestingness’ are not both equally necessary ingredients to good information design nor absolutely necessary at the same level of import as form & function. IMHO, they may be necessary if you’re creating a book trying to attract people into seeing information as both relevant and attractive (a very worthy cause and one that I support, btw) but not so elemental in day-to-day information design.

Here’s the reason. If the audience (especially a business audience) is motivated – “I NEED to SEE my data to achieve my goals” – they will look past some of the ugly and boring if they get the understanding they’re looking for. Over-emphasis on ‘beauty’ and ‘interestingness’ can even become warning flags that the message may have been manipulated either for esthetic reasons or worse. Not all information to be portrayed accurately can be beautiful or interesting – nor should all information design ‘stand on it’s own’ (be fully interpretable without additional explanation). I believe that really good information design shows new perspectives on data that were otherwise unavailable (not yet unlocked) to the audience. Many folks who work in infovis (myself formerly included) think the holy grail to visualization is provide visuals that need no (or very minimal) commentary, explanation, or narrative. Just not so in ‘real life’. The key here is to maximize understanding in your audience – not to exclusively perform a ‘feat’ of design that is heralded by your design peers.

Note: not sure if I’m being too harsh – not my intent. :) I really respect your work and approach. And I feel that too many information designers are not sufficiently skilled in providing beautiful and interesting designs – I just feel like you have to be careful about swinging the pendelum too far to the other side.

Interesting that there is such a similarity between your principals and Vitruvius’s three principals of architecture.

Durability – it should stand up robustly and remain in good condition.
Utility – it should be useful and function well for the people using it.
Beauty – it should delight people and raise their spirits.

Two suggestions:
1. form might be better called aesthetics?
2. eye candy seems like it should be form + interestingness. I personally tend to think of eye candy as having less integrity.

Point (2) brings up one of the constraints discussed by Joe with this design: you can’t see the intersection of two opposites by themselves. Not that this setup is wrong, but I’m curious about what compelled you to have interestingness and form be opposites. There are 2 other possibilities you may want to play with, or you could use 3 circles instead..

Going to your thought that graphics meeting 2 conditions seem to have value but meeting 3 fail, I offer that perhaps what is going on is that you upped your expectations when 3 conditions are met, so you focus on what is missing, whereas with only 2of 4 conditions met, expectations are lower and can be met because you have internalized the limitations of what you’re seeing.

For example, look at the “Boring” area. Take out Function and it becomes “eye-candy.” But, there’s no intrinsic reason why taking out Function should make it less visually appealing (i.e., “eye-candy.”) Ditto if “Proof of Concept” makes sense where shown, why does ADDING Form make it “Useless.” I think you’re moving the goalposts.

For historic, mass market, one way information design you may not need the “interestingness” dimension.

But, for the future, there is a new design dimension needed for successful information design. (Maybe it needs a different name that “interestingness” but you are on the right path.)

The future of successful information design is when the right people find the information. The right people being, as @adamnieman says, the people who are ready to go beyond consuming info.

For example, “what is interesting” about a song and to whom it is interesting will be different if it the song is for:
a) someone to download and listen to
b) aspiring musicians who would use the song to improvise on

Before you say – that’s a functional dimension, consider that in today’s market, the “put it up there an hope they come” marketing strategy just doesn’t work. The information design strategy has to extend out into the infosphere and harvest the right people.

Once they come to the destination, then the information design has convert curiosity into consumption and beyond.

The “interestingness” dimension you are contemplating gets at these new challenges.

I’ve been working on this here: http://bit.ly/c2fmk\

What do you think of these points?

Katherine Warman Kern
@comradity

Really interesting way of laying it down, needs pondering – thanks!

hi, I like this post I’m interesting in traslate it to spanish language, can iI traslate it for my blog.? i think that your ideas are greats, if you are interesting please send me a mail, or in a comment here.

greetings from Mexico

Like Nicholas mentioned, the problem with 4 circles in 2D is that they do not form all possible combinations of the four sets.

For a mathematically accurate 4-set Venn diagram (and venn diagrams of a lot more sets!) Google the book by Edwards “Cogwheels of the Mind: the story of venn diagrams”

(Also, I just purchased THREE copies of your book. Its fantastic – congratulations!)

hey, awesome diagram. i think this summarises life. maybe the happy working class (2 out of 4 will do nicely) represents the optimal choice?