The Art of Visualization

Check out this excellent compilation of visualization methods called “A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods.” This came to my attention via a convoluted path from BoingBoing (who thanks Mike Love) to Seth Godin to Acorn Creative. Ralph Lengler and Martin J. Eppler created it. You might also enjoy reading their paper, entitled “Towards a Periodic Table of Visualization Methods for Management”

On a related topic, some people are lucky enough to have the ability to transform the spoken word into graphics in real time. I gave a speech to the International Coach Federation, and Martha McGinnis created this graphic representation of it. You may find this useful as a quick summary of my Art of Innovation speech (you can watch the speech online here). Here is Martha’s chart in two sizes:

• 1024 x 558 (348K)

• 4075 x 2217 (7.4M)

And I just found out about this mind map of the book at Anabubula.com.

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Comments

[anthropocentric]

Edward Tufte is the world's expert on visualizations, if anyone is interested in learning more about the topic:

https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/

His books contain some fascinating historical examples of dense-with-data yet informative-at-a-glance visualizations. Highly recommended.

[Joey Roth]

Guy,
I’m glad you posted about visualization. Sketching has always been a part of my product design process, but I find it even more useful for designing a startup. I use storyboards of no more that eight squares to explore everything from customer behavior when opening one of my packages to warehousing and fulfillment. These “vignettes” of my future business play out like short skits in my mind- I want them to remain in the same form when I put them on paper. I’ve also found that storyboards, especially when you draw them while in dialogue, are a wonderful way to collaborate. The hardest part is forcing yourself to use sketches more than words in each frame.

[Yakito]

Thanks for the speach, it would be imposible for me to listen to you in any other way!