Information Overload

Next week, I will have to present a couple of slides on the theme "Information Overload". Poor me. Fortunately, I came across the following:

What about confusing clutter? Information overload? Doesn't data have to be "boiled down" and "simplified"? These common questions miss the point, for the quantity of detail is an issue completely separate from the difficulty of reading. Clutter and confusion are failures of design, not attributes of information. Often the less complex and less subtle the line, the more ambiguous and less interesting is the reading. Stripping the detail out of data is a style based on personal preference and fashion, considerations utterly indifferent to substantive content.

I think that a slide that contains the above quote suffices. Should there be any questions, I will tell the following anecdote. Some friends bought a house in the middle of nowhere and as a present I bought a map. On the map there was a tiny spot (about 2x2 mm). Once I returned home, there was an ecstatic email: "our house is on the map" (that was the tiny spot). Is there a theory behind all this? Yes there is. First of all, I would be interested in whether anyone recognises the quote ....

When pressed further. I will try to argue that the tools we use today to suppress "Information Overload" (in the improbable case it does exist) are actually generating it. Email is the prime example, Google is a close second. We need maps, good maps.

Comments

[Santiago Gala]

I'd say that, rather than a map, we need a "map with a route drawn on it", i.e. a purpose.

Purpose polarizes information like magnets do with iron particles.

But then, I'm possibly missing the point...

[Anjo]

Well, the user has a purpose, so if the route is related to the user's purpose that would certainly help. Unfortunately, that won't happen very often.

One of the points is that the process of finding the right information is not obstructed by the amount of information (i.e. overload), but by presentation.

It took a long time to arrive at maps (e.g. in an atlas) as we now know them. Maps are very detailed and very useful.

In the project I work in there is the notion of "knowledge maps". An intriguing term and I'm trying to relate it to my own work (being interested in both knowledge and maps :-)).

[Piers Young]

Hi Anjo,
Sounds like the quote's from Edward Tufte.

Piers

[Anjo]

Hi Piers, Indeed, very good. Won't ask for book and page number :-).