Visual Thinking for Information Design
- 2nd Edition - March 26, 2021
- Author: Colin Ware
- Language: English
- Paperback ISBN:9 7 8 - 0 - 1 2 - 8 2 3 5 6 7 - 6
- eBook ISBN:9 7 8 - 0 - 1 2 - 8 2 3 5 6 8 - 3
Visual Thinking for Information Design, Second Edition brings the science of perception to the art of design. The book takes what we now know about perception, cognition and atten… Read more
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Request a sales quoteVisual Thinking for Information Design, Second Edition brings the science of perception to the art of design. The book takes what we now know about perception, cognition and attention and transforms it into concrete advice that students and designers can directly apply. It demonstrates how designs can be considered as tools for cognition and extensions of the viewer’s brain in much the same way that a hammer is an extension of the user’s hand. The book includes hundreds of examples, many in the form of integrated text and full-color diagrams.
Renamed from the first edition, Visual Thinking for Design, to more accurately reflect its focus on infographics, this timely revision has been updated throughout and includes more content on pattern perception, the addition of new material illustrating color assimilation, and a new chapter devoted to communicating ideas through images.
- Presents visual thinking as a complex process that can be supported in every stage using specific design techniques
- Provides practical, task-oriented information for designers and software developers charged with design responsibilities
- Includes hundreds of examples, many in the form of integrated text and full-color diagrams
- Steeped in the principles of “active vision,” which views graphic designs as cognitive tools
- Features a new chapter titled Communicating Ideas with Images that focuses on a new emerging theory of human cognition and how that theory, which deals with the construction and refinement of predictive mental models in the mind, provides a solid foundation for reasoning about what should go into a presentation
Students taking relevant courses in information design, industrial design, interaction design, and web design – US course market size for information/data visualization: 6,500 students in 2019; increase of 18% over previous year. Designers of all kinds, including professionals in information design, industrial design, interaction design, web design, and users of information visualization, who need practical guidance in visual and cognitive science in order to excel at their jobs—or future jobs.
- Cover image
- Title page
- Table of Contents
- Copyright
- Preface
- Chapter 1. Visual Queries
- Abstract
- The Apparatus and Process of Seeing
- The Act of Perception
- Bottom-Up
- Top-Down
- Implications for Design
- Nested Loops
- Distributed Cognition
- Conclusion
- Chapter 2. What We Can Easily See
- Abstract
- The Machinery of Low-level Feature Analysis
- What Stands Out = What We Can Bias For
- Visual Search Strategies and Skills
- Using Multiscale Structure to Design for Search
- Conclusion
- Chapter 3. Structuring Two-Dimensional Space
- Abstract
- 2.5D Space
- The Pattern-Processing Machinery
- The Binding Problem: Features to Contours
- The Generalized Contour
- Texture Regions
- Interference and Selective Tuning
- Patterns, Channels, and Attention
- Intermediate Patterns
- Pattern Learning
- Spatial Layout
- Pattern for design
- Semantic Pattern Mappings
- Examples of Pattern Queries With Common Graphical Artifacts
- Chapter 4. Color
- Abstract
- The Color-processing Machinery
- Opponent Process Theory
- Channel Properties
- Principles for Design
- Color-coding Information
- Emphasis and Highlighting
- Color Sequences
- Color on Shaded Surfaces
- Semantics of Color
- Conclusion
- Chapter 5. Getting the Information: Visual Space and Time
- Abstract
- Depth Perception and Cue Theory
- 2.5D design
- Affordances
- The Where Pathway
- Artificial Interactive Spaces
- Space Traversal and Cognitive Costs
- Conclusion
- Chapter 6. Visual Objects, Words, and Meaning
- Abstract
- The Inferotemporal Cortex and the What Channel
- Generalized Views From Patterns
- Structured Objects
- Gist and Scene Perception
- Visual and Verbal Working Memory
- Thinking in Action: Receiving a Cup of Coffee
- Elaborations and Implications for Design
- Novelty
- Images as Symbols
- Meaning and Emotion
- Conclusion
- Chapter 7. Visual and Verbal Narrative
- Abstract
- Visual Thinking Versus Language-based Thinking
- Comparing and Contrasting the Verbal and Written Modes
- Linking Words and Images Through Deixis
- PowerPoint Presentations and Pointing
- Mirror Neurons: Copycat Cells
- Visual Narrative: Capturing the Cognitive Thread
- Cartoons and Narrative Diagrams
- Conclusion
- Chapter 8. Building Mental Models: Why We Present with Visualizations
- Abstract
- Episodic Memory
- Long-Term Memory
- Priming
- Predictive Cognition and Presentations
- Analyzing Seaweed and Building Mental Models
- Photographs
- Cartoons to Support Mental Model Building
- Mechanical Models Using Animation
- Charts and Graphs
- Narrative Assembly Diagrams
- Combining Figurative and Non-Figurative Elements
- Visualizations to Advertise
- Maps, Plans, and Mental Models with Space and Time
- Narrative Tension and Plot Development
- Chapter 9. Creative Meta-seeing
- Abstract
- Mental Imagery
- The Magic of the Scribble
- Diagrams are Ideas Made Concrete
- Requirements and Early Design
- The Creative Design Loop
- Visual Skill Development
- Conclusion
- Chapter 10. The Dance of Meaning
- Abstrtact
- Review
- Implications
- Design to Support Pattern Finding
- Optimizing the Cognitive Process
- Learning and the Economics of Cognition
- Designing for Mental Models
- What’s Next?
- Index
- No. of pages: 224
- Language: English
- Edition: 2
- Published: March 26, 2021
- Imprint: Morgan Kaufmann
- Paperback ISBN: 9780128235676
- eBook ISBN: 9780128235683
CW
Colin Ware
Colin Ware is the world’s leading authority on the perceptual principles underlying the effective design of information displays. He combines interests in both basic and applied visualization research and he has advanced degrees in both computer science (MMath, Waterloo) and in the psychology of perception (PhD,Toronto). He has published over 160 articles in scientific and technical journals and at leading conferences. Many of these articles relate to the use of color, texture, motion and 3D displays in information visualization. His approach is always to combine theory with practice and his publications range from rigorously scientific contributions to the Journal of Physiology and Vision Research to applications oriented articles in ACM Transactions on Graphics and ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction. Fledermaus, the leading visualization software used in oceanography, originated in software developed by him and his graduate students.
Affiliations and expertise
Data Visualization Research Lab, University of New Hampshire, Durham, USARead Visual Thinking for Information Design on ScienceDirect