Paper on information visualisation

Hi All,

I was reading this <http://geoanalytics.net/and/papers/springer08a.pdf> paper
on information visualisation, and I thought the following was a cogent
point.

3.7 Conclusions
To summarize, we feel there are many aspects of information visualization
research
that can find analogies in the concepts of information theory - *it is all
about*
*communication*. Perhaps finding such a formal structure on which to ground
our
efforts can potentially reduce the amount of ad hocness in the field. *The
key is to*
*define measures of information transfer, content, or loss at all stages of
the pipeline as*
*a means of assessing our progress* in the development of new visualization
techniques
and enhancement of existing ones.


Namely, if we want an objective ruler to measure the clarity and
effectiveness of information transfer, we can determine the degree to which
the intended content was communicated effectively and the degree to which
the intended message was lost. I.e., in what way was the communication
clear and in what way was the communication unclear.

I think the reason this could be useful is that it could enable finding
complementary ways of communicating, e.g. if you have Communication Method
1 which communicates Aspect A well but loses Aspect B, and you have
Communication Method 2 which communicates Aspect B well but loses Aspect A,
then we could try to determine how to combine Method 1 and Method 2 to
produce a generally acceptable means of communication.

Cheers,

Edward