[Visinfo] Reaction to Baker and Bushell

[Zachary M. Davis]

I would agree with the seemingly unanimous opinion that, on the 
surface, the content of this article was an interesting and worthwhile 
exercise in reevaluating design.  However, I agree very strongly with 
Mike about the idea of the two videos representing two very distinct 
moments in time.  Some of the changes are clear improvements over the 
original design, but several of the changes are, as the authors admit, 
arbitrary (for example the "light" almost monochromatic color scheme).  
Which I guess makes me wonder about the motives of the authors in the 
redesign of the visualization.  I mean, who hasn't looked at something 
they created years and years ago and thought, "if only I could do it 
over again..."  Well Bushell got the chance, and she admittedly updated 
and improved the original design, but I should hope six years in the 
field and vastly improved technology would result in a more optimized 
version.  Note that Bushell was one of seven designers working on the 
original, "inferior" visualization, while two people were able to bang 
out the sleek "improved" version.  To me this is a tell-tale sign that 
things changed dramatically in the field between 1989 and 1995.  Not 
that I'm saying that this wasn't an interesting or useful article.  I 
think it was.  I just think that it could be repeated every year for 
the next however many years, and each year the design could be 
"improved" and "updated".  To me, this article is more just a show of 
how the field of information visualization evolved over the early 90's.

-- 
Zachary Davis
zmd at umail.ucsb.edu