In the days following the World Trade Center tragedy on Sept. 11, 2001, the news media wrestled with the enormous quantity of human-loss statistics phoned in by affected families. These names referenced thousands individuals that these families profoundly cared about and would eventually mourn. The media, in confronting the challenge of presenting such heartrending information and the overwhelming amount of bereavement, relied on a quantifiable approach to designing such statistics for mass consumption. Evidently, production inserts keyed in on the bottom of television screens displayed scrolling numbers, sound-byte tracks of seemingly instantaneous gratification in coping with the economy of airtime and awesome amount of news. One could imagine information “tickers” of human tragedy—where numbers surmount, anxiety and anticipation cultivates. Quantitative virtues portrayed in these information graphics argued for numerical clarity in its message; whereby in the days following, the world could have been changed forever, and these momentary glances at numbers assuage how humanity stood frozen at that very moment in time. Nonetheless, today the tickers are gone; numbers are no longer news; families are left bereft; and a war is well underway. The media has retreated to capture screen shots of “Ground-Zero” as it stands in recovery, and the news, while still overpopulated with information, may perhaps be apologetic for the dispassionate exhibit it proposed in the ere of such catastrophe.

However unmoved, the news media cannot be seized as a scapegoat for the objectivity of information graphics proliferating the discipline of information design. Information graphics have traditionally upheld the role as a constructor of clarity in visual communication; where interpretation experiments explicitly create obstacles in the exchanges of highly sensitive, impermeable data.  Through clarity and a propensity towards objectivity, information graphics have advanced the institutional, empirical virtues of design for function and economy.

Advocates for objectivity in information graphics argue a content-approach to design, and elements of form and color are employed in direct correlation to the information presented. “Design reasoning must correspond to scientific reasoning,” according to designer and political scientist, Edward Tufte (Tufte, 53). According to Tufte, should malleable, interpretive elements be at one’s disposal, information graphics must carry an objective posture in order to develop integrity. Careful attention to objective design in information graphics plays an underpinning role to the veracity and integrity of data.

This paper surveys empirical mores in information theory and how empirical styles, such as plain-style, remain analogous to traditions in the design of information graphics. Through an examination of representative artifacts that sustain empirical practices, this paper will further attest that information graphics propose humanistic virtues as well, and these virtues should be considered to fully capture the fundamental nature and complexity of human communication.

A Fundamental Model of Communication

Information, in a generic sense of the term, has inhabited the recesses of visual communication more today than it ever has before. The need for information is evident in the advent of new media such as the Web, and technologies that populate the use of visual communication within an attainable, cost-effective venue. Information has in part coded vernacular canons of design to embrace content as an architect of form, similar to Tufte’s process of data determining the outcome of the design. A propensity for the importance of information is deliberate in the explosion of information graphics and its use in communication. Sam Dragga and Dan Voss, in their article “The Inhumanity of Technical Illustrations,” maintain that the education within fields like technical communication upholds that students and practitioners make aggressive use of these visual cues for representing written or oral communication. And, the use of information graphics represents good practice in technical communication design. Dragga and Voss observe that

[i]llustrations, such as pie graphs, line graphs, bar graphs, diagrams, drawings, and photographs occur widely in technical publications. Virtually every teacher and textbook advises writers to incorporate such illustrations whenever possible. A rapid rise in the international distribution of information also encourages technical communicators to substitute pictures for words or at least to reinforce words with pictures. And more and more every day, technological innovations make doing so both quicker and easier. (Dragga and Voss 265)

Furthermore, part of the vigor of the theory behind information stems from a model of communication that is intrinsically complex—one that dissects information and transforms it, attending to a rich intricacy in the message pervading data. For Claude E. Shannon and Warren Weaver, authors of The Mathematical Theory of Communication, communication is rigorously defined in terms of the information, as a “measure of one’s freedom of choice when one selects the message.” (Shannon and Weaver, 100).  The freedom alleged in the Shannon and Weaver thesis refers to the responsibility imposed on the sender in the information exchange to construct messages for effective audience response and forthright interpretation.

The communication model (Shannon and Weaver, 98), characteristically assumes that: 1) information transforms the message; 2) the message is decoded by the sender; 3) the message then travels over channels barraged by “noise”; 4) the receiver allows for analysis of this message; and 5) this message is then transformed and decoded by the reader to capsulate meaning. Inherent in the communication model are many devices (e.g. encoding, “noise,” and decoding) which transforms information to higher levels of shared understanding between the sender and receiver. (98) Information is furthermore transformed by levels of high entropy (chaos) and a low probability that this message will be conveyed as intended. And, when information travels across the channels of a communication network, noise pervades information, intercepts meaning and ultimately transforms the message. Thus, advancing the disposition that information is subject to magnificent freedom and altercation both on the sender’s responsibility to craft the message to reflect one’s effectiveness and the receiver’s interpretation of that message once it traverses through such divergent channels.

The communication model proposed by Shannon and Weaver appeals for the dissemination of noise, where information economy is a virtue and the information-noise variable plays the hurdling act in the theater of communication trade. For Shannon and Weaver, uncertainty in the message exchange assumes a dualistic role. Freedom for the sender to choose the message would on one hand be beneficial; the sender has leverage to choose the message and is thus held responsible for its outcome on the receiver’s end. Alternatively, when noise intercepts the message and ultimately the sender’s freedom to choose the message, communication impediments are fashioned, and this undoubtedly is detrimental to the act. As Shannon and Weaver observe,

It is generally true to say that when there is noise, the received signal exhibits greater information—or better, the received signal is selected out of a more varied set than is the transmitted signal. This is a situation which beautifully illustrates the semantic trap into which one can fall if he does not remember that “information sis used here with a special meaning that measures freedom of choice and hence uncertainty as to what choice has been made. It is therefore possible for the word information to have either good or bad connotations. Uncertainty which arises by virtue of freedom of choice on the part of the sender is desirable uncertainty. Uncertainty which arises because of errors or because of the influence of noise, is undesirable uncertainty. (109)

Clarity as an Agent of Integrity in Information Graphics

As the communication model proposed by Shannon and Weaver illustrates, noise and its malfunctionary consequences on the communication exchange would in turn create flaws in the message. This would maintain that noise or uncertainty in the message has the potential to mislead audiences from the messages intent.

Evangelists of clarity in information graphics would similarly argue that design should mimic Shannon and Weaver’s tender to reduce noise in trade for the information’s integrity. Whereas noise, through its semiotic variables of audience interpretation, could have the potential to misdirect the message, allow for delusion from the receiver’s perspective, an thus affirming that the information would be devalued based on misinterpretation.

Edward R. Tufte, author of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, suggests that information graphics are sensitive to a number of dynamics that enforce designers to be vigilant in their visual representation of data. Perceived notions of visual representation, as constructed by the audience, may be dissimilar to the designer’s intent. (Tufte, 1983, 55) There is little doubt that visual representation of complex data helps audiences interpret data, to understand and map out intricacies unforeseen outside of the discourse community by which such data was constructed. Yet, underlying the conduit value of scientific visualization as a gesture of humanistic virtue, Tufte asserts that interpretation tends to hoodwink individuals to extract different findings from information graphics. Moreover, the context sensitivity, crafted by situation and by other individuals’ observations, further altercates the information and takes it less closer to the truth. Tufte observes,

Different people see the same areas [graphics] somewhat differently; perceptions change with experience; and perceptions are context-dependent . . . Misperception and miscommunication are certainly not special to statistical graphics, but what is a poor designer to do? A different graphic for each perceiver in each context? Or designs that correct for the visual transformations of the average perceiver participating in the average psychological experiment? (56)

Tufte advocates several solutions to combat such elasticity in meaning of information graphics. On one hand, tabular representations reflect data in its truest form, as arrays of actual representations of data. Furthermore, the designer could opt for uniformity in graphics to diminish the perceptual anomalies that audiences may extract. (56) Tufte goes on to facilitate two principles to “enhance graphical integrity:”

[1] The representation of numbers, as physically measured on the surface of the graphic itself, should be directly proportional to the numerical quantities represented.

[2] Clear, detailed, and thorough labeling should be used to defeat graphical distortion and ambiguity. Write out explanations of the data on the graphic itself. Label important events in the data. (56)

Tufte further notes a presumed “Lie Factor,” an equation based measuring of violations in the first set of principles, whereby a measure of one determines integrity:

Lie factor = size of effect shown in graphic / size of effect in data

Tufte’s edicts for information graphics are at its best an empirical foundation for designers looking to approach information graphics with an utter sense of objective responsibility for audiences. At its worst, however, which remains the premise that Tufte upholds, such guidelines prompt ethical guidelines for truthfulness in information graphics; telling lies through information graphics are best dispelled through the use of objectivity. Tufte vies for economy in graphics, that good organization is the utmost battle against lack of integrity. However, Tufte’s edicts are nonetheless only arguments for precision not ethical responsibilities for the designer to craft truthfulness within messages. (Dragga and Voss, 265)

Tufte’s rich inclination towards clarity in the design of information graphics is further illustrated in his approach to color, a capital attribute in information graphics seeking to retreat from the black-and-white, pre-technology limitations. Rather than allow for the abstract splendor and effect of color on human perception, Tufte manages to break down color into quantifiable taxonomies; hue, value, gradation, etc. He notes that color is a “natural quantifier,” and “spans an incredible fineness of distinction, a precision comparable to most measurement.” (Tufte, 1990, 91)

As a measure of Tufte’s definition of integrity in information graphics, where design remains consistent to data, he refers to a particular artifact, The General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans. The map outlines ocean depths (bathymetric tints) and land heights (hypsometric tints) within a continuum of shades ranging from deep aqua to yellow ochre.  The premise for interpretation is simple, “the deeper or higher, the darker,” as Tufte notes. (91) Furthermore, multiple variables such as meter tracks are shaded in “transparent gray,” noting Tufte’s escapism from the grid as a modus for devaluing true, viable data (Tufte, 1983, 116).  Nevertheless, inherent in Tufte’s arguments for the numerical nature of color dismisses the apparent humanistic values of color evident in this design. The gradation and depth convey emotion and meaning in viewers far in retreat of Tufte’s quantitative analysis, yet Tufte remains insensitive to the prowess and complexity of the use of color in this design.

Humanistic Approaches to Clarity

Tufte’s agency for truth and effectiveness in information graphics relies on clarity; the limitations of design depend on how far design flexes outside of the barriers quantifiable data. Carolyn Miller would conversely argue that clarity is often the scapegoat of science to form criteria of what is good and bad technical communication. Miller moreover argues that to base criteria on the assumption of methological, exact proofs would be to adopt a positivist, windowpane theory of language described as:

[t]he notion that language provides a view out onto our real world, a view which may be clear or obfuscated. If language is clear, then we see reality accurately; if language is highly decorative or opaque, then we see what is not really there or we see it with difficulty. (Miller, 612)

By espousing to the windowpane notion of language, one might assume that within a positivist framework, truth is present and pervasive. Clarity is simply a means of attaining such truth through the “windows” or channels of communication. Turbidity is a catalyst of noise and distraction from the truth.

Yet, in sustaining the diversity of the human condition, one could argue that individuals peer through many different windowpanes by which truth is fashioned. Miller attests that “[s]ome audiences are capable of seeing some aspects of reality; others are more capable and can see more.” There stands a need for audience-analysis, one that advocates more than just the examination into relationships between audiences and proposed realities; but rather, one that buttresses the relationship between the audience and the sender of the message, albeit writer or designer. (615) The designer’s role is to map out these truths and find harmony within audiences without being ignorant of individual perception. The designer’s role is to be attentive to intricacies within audiences—to be compassionate, reflective, and adapt designs accordingly.

Roger Whitehouse, author of “The Uniqueness of Individual Perception,” embarked on a project for The Lighthouse in New York; he and other project members were called upon to devise spatial maps for the lighthouse. The challenge proposed to the project team was to adapt these maps to incorporate a variety of blind, deaf, and sighted visitors. The project team’s methodologies were based on questions about subjective preferences for the visual display (Whitehouse, 113) and objective tests as to which implementations in the design would work best (115). Whitehouse noted three factors which form visual perception: 1) sensory attributes such as touch and sight; 2) intellect; and 3) meaning.  (107) Whereby the latter attribute, meaning, proves most interesting in looking at audience as an individualistic entity. Past experiences, cultural dispositions and context synergistically create meaning for audiences, and meaning sheds light on perception. Whitehouse learned particular lessons from the project, that audiences range from a variety of perspectives, and the design should be sympathetic to such multiplicity. Where design can most benefit is identifying commonalities in audiences, and adapting to match these commonalities. Whitehouse notes:

Perhaps we can think of these areas [audiences] as the circles of separate spotlight beams, each encompassing a specific group of individuals. In ideal situations, the beams can be broad and so include a large group of people; in other cases, the must be more tightly focused. The essential lesson for designers, therefore, is that we must be diligent enough in our efforts to understand individual needs. (115)

Such affinity towards audience, as understood in Whitehouse’s arguments, is not a far stretch from the sympathy for audience involvement made by Walter J. Ong, S.J., in his article “The Writer’s Audience is Always Fiction.” The act of communication is altogether informed by the dynamics of meaning, personality, context and shared experiences, and stylistic rhetorical devices make undoubted contributions to these dynamics. Ong asserts that the writing process in communication, not dissimilar to the design of visual communication, begins with the reader in mind as readers assemble from a vast array of audiences (e.g. scientist, academics, literary patrons, etc.). This in turn argues the need for writing to form intricate interactions with its readers. As Ong suggests,

The orator has before him an audience with is a true audience, a collectivity. Audience is a collective noun. There is no such collective noun for readers, nor so far as I am able to puzzle out, can there be. Readers is plural. Readers do not form a collectivity, action here and now on one another and on the speaker as members of an audience do. (Ong, 11)

Karen McCoy, in “Information and Persuasion: Rivals or Partners?,” remarks that audiences develop meaning and persuasion from information artifacts within their own situational and motivational contexts (McCoy, 80), moreover adopting the Ong approach to readers as being a vehicle for crafting the message. McCoy questions conventional notions of information, as being a polarity of persuasiveness and rhetoric. Traditionalists would argue that information design is based on the sender’s intention coupled with content; where content prizes information over such devices as persuasion and rhetoric [institutionally attributed to the dissuasion of advertising], good design is born. (80) Yet, the dichotomy cultivated by the information-persuasion debate would best serve publics if an accord were realized.   

To illustrate this example, McCoy refers to the familiar stop sign, whereby information might be seen to trump persuasion. From a modernist perspective, the stop sign could be seen as pure data; its rigid, readable san-serif font and its highly saturated red in contrast to the muteness of the white is determined to enact a mutual, objective reaction from viewers. Yet, as an artifact of context, drivers may either be alerted to react from its position or may be inattentive and drive right through it. (81) As an agent of persuasiveness the color red would have been chosen as an expression of vigilance and caution, thus calling the need to react and stop. The sans-serif font could be a call for clarity and readability, yet the good design would dictate that its minimalist structure reflects the language, of the low propensity of data in the word “stop.” Devices of interpretation define the dualistic purpose of information graphics, as both a constructor of clarity and an agent of persuasion. 

Final Remarks

Tufte might argue that devices of interpetation typically assuage truth out from the content in information graphics; because of a rhetorical nature to shape and possibly alter meaning. For Tufte, meaning holds viability within the information and must be within complete control of the sender. Truth is inescapable in good information graphics. And, one would be inclined to argue that Tufte’s design is a relic of good design by these standards; the previously mentioned map is concise, easily navigable, and richly informative. Yet, implicit in Tufte’s design are humanistic virtues by which its persuasion is shaped. And, this paper proposes that these humanistic virtues hold meaning, truth, and persuasiveness above and beyond the simple pedagogies of clarity. Notwithstanding, designers of information graphics would be best served to acknowledge and accept these virtues as multi-faceted “window panes” by which truth and reality are shaped.

Traditionalists of clarity in information graphics might argue that the inherent gradation accurately reflects the enumeration of depth and height; that the naturalistic aqua and yellow-ochre hues truthfully conveys colors found within the earth—a candorous snapshot of reality. Yet, it is through the expressiveness and affinity towards humanistic persuasion that demarcates its effectiveness.

One might propose alternate elucidations through the “window-panes” of humanistic virtue:

One could imagine the splendor of gazing across miles of ocean as gradations saturate the human sense of seclusion and wonderment. Conversely, as gradations deepen, one could quiver at the petrifying feeling of 3,500 feet of cold, unfamiliar nothingness beneath one’s feet. Or, simply the exquisiteness of the color blue draws they eye in to look closer at the richness, and potential therof, in the graphical visualization of scientific information.

Works Cited

Dragga, Sam and Dan Voss. “Cruel Pies: The Inhumanity of Technical Illustrations.” Technical Communication Online. 48.3 (August 2001): 265—274.

McCoy, Karen, “Information and Persuasion: Rivals or Partners?.” Design Issues. 17.1 (2001): 80—84.

Miller, Carolyn R. “A Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing.” College English. 40.6 (1979)

Ong. Walter J., S.J. “The Writer’s Audience is Always a Fiction.” Publication of the Modern Language Association. 90 (1975): 6—21.  

Shannon, Claude E., and Warren Weaver. The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbania-Champaign: The University of Illinois Press, 1949.

Tufte, Edward R. The Visual Display of Scientific Information. Cheshire, Conn.: Graphics Press, 1983.

Tufte, Edward R. Envisioning Information. Cheshire, Conn.: Graphics Press, 1990.

Whitehouse, Roger. “The Uniqueness of Individual Perception.” Information Design. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1999.