Visualization and Presentation

Is What You See What You're Getting?

Personally, I could look at the string of ASCII characters above all day and not get hungry. However, if I look at the image on the right, it is clear I want an apple to eat. While both the data (ASCII Code), letters and picture are equivalent, they are not equally effective when communicating what is desirable to occur. This is an important philosophical concept to understand because evaluation falls under the discipline of philosophy. Visualization is a technique for creating images to communicate a message. Using visual imagery to communicate both abstract and concrete ideas has been used since the dawn of mankind. A visual image is a mental image that is based on visual perception.

People will perceive things differently, so common ground must be established, which is why there is a need for presentation. Presentation is the practice of showing, explaining or demonstrating the content of a topic to an audience. Combining these two ideas of Visualization and Presentation is referred to as V&P. These two ideas should remain integrated in the DIKUD continuum. Visualization is mental and presentation is physical. Visualization is the beginning and presentation is the end.

Hence, there needs to be a standard of what constitutes understandable to the viewer. Lengler and Eppler (2008) define a visualization method as a systematic, rule-based, and graphic representation that depicts information in a way that is conducive to acquiring insights, developing an understanding, or communicating an experience. Visualization methods can be simple or elaborate. At its most simplistic form, visualization may involve a pie chart, and at more complex levels, a concept map. The application of visualization to LL is significant.

The concept of Information Visualization (AKA visual communication) has become a step-child of Information Science, a cousin of Psychology, next of kin to Business, and adopted by Knowledge Management (KM). Eppler and Burkhard (2004) who use the term knowledge visualization said that making knowledge visible so it can be more accessible, discussed, valued, or managed is an objective of KM. The visual reality is that a majority of our brain's activity is focused on processing and analyzing visual images. Several empirical studies argue that visual input is processed at a higher level than auditory input (Larkin and Simon 1987; Glenberg and Langston, 1992, Bauer and Johnson-Laird, 1993; Novick, 2001).

Click here to display some visualization examples.