Volume II, Issue 2

One powerful facet of information visualization is its ability to provide a novel and often innovative view of the ordinary. Visualization has the power to unearth hidden aspects of the everyday while sparking interest in its viewer. PJIM is focused on finding and presenting some of my most unique visualization works (commercial, research, academic, etc.) and this issue continues that tradition.

Our four pieces showcase everything from a new concept for information modelling, to transforming information into a video feed, to displaying data in a hertzian landscape, to a revolutionary use of advanced iconography to depict healthcare information. PJIM presents these works as a new edge in information design and thanks our contributors to the tireless efforts in each of their domains.

Brian Willison, Publisher

Parsons Journal for Information Mapping

Health Care Service Iconography: Enhancing Medical Record Lucidity Through Intelligent Iconography

by William Bevington & David Fusilier

The Integration of Information and Ideas: Creating Linkages Through A Novel Concept Design Method

by Andrew Wodehouse, MEng, Ing & William Ion

Video Sonification

by Michael Filimowicz, MFA

Mapping Hertzian Space: A Noospheric Atlas of the United States

by Brett Ian Balogh, MFA

Health Care Service Iconography: Enhancing Medical Record Lucidity Through Intelligent Iconography

by William Bevington & David Fusilier

KEYWORDS

AHLTA, data visualization, electronic medical records, graphic user interface navigation, HCSI, health care service event, healthcare, heuristics, information architecture, information visualization, intelligent iconography, VISTA, workflow

ABSTRACT

An analysis of paper medical records systems reveals a neglected metric for improved Workflow and Navigation in the design of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) Graphical User Interface (GUI) systems. This metric, the healthcare service event, failed to make a meaningful transition into the contemporary EMR GUI workflow. Current electronic systems typically follow a primarily task-based structure: dividing content into case-by-case selected activity modules, i.e.,Vital Signs, Medications, Labs, etcetera. In contrast, paper medical records systems, like real-world professional practices, follow a primarily event-based structure: grouping content according to healthcare service events, i.e., a physician encounter, a diagnostic procedure, a surgery, etcetera. Designers of contemporary EMR systems would benefit from a unified taxonomy that seamlessly integrates and structurally supports both event-based and task-based logics. Our proposal for achieving such a system requires a bridging device which we refer to as intelligent iconography. This will result in the effective integration of content representation and its control through a unified taxonomy for a superior EMR GUI workflow

Intelligent icons, specifically designed for an integrated EMR GUI, require a proprietary taxonomy, ontology, and manifest. Taxonomy refers to the categorical and principle divisions to be represented through intelligent iconography; ontology determines how each taxonomic element is defined; manifest provides for the explicit visualization of the intelligent icons. Through these considerations, this paper presents a fully articulated set of intelligent icons herein referred to as: Health Care Service Iconography (HCSI).

BIOGRAPHY

William M. Bevington currently serves as Associate Professor of Information Mapping in the School of Art, Media, and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design, The New School, New York. He formerly served as the Executive Director for Parsons Institute of Information Mapping, Chairman of the Communication Design department at Parsons School of Design, and various professorial and instructional roles at his Alma Mater, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. He is an information designer and information theorist specializing in creating tools for the rapid assessment of complex data. His first significant project was the Blackout Procedures Manual for Con Edison in 1983, and the last was a major Geospatial Media Mash-up Tool under U.S. government contract entitled the Geospace and Media Tool (GMT). Mr. Bevington has developed toolsets for transit systems applications, stock trading applications, and health management tools as a principle designer at Spire Integrated Design, New York. He has lectured worldwide, illustrated Graphic Designers Production Handbook, co-authored Working with Graphic Designers and Designing with Type with Jim Craig. He is also the author of Typography: The Principles, A Basic Guide to Using Type published by The Cooper Union.

David Fusilier currently serves as an information designer at Parsons Institute of Information Mapping and as a graphic and typographic designer at the Brooklyn-based Darden Studio. He is a recent graduate of Parsons The New School for Design, The New School, earning his BFA from the Communication Design and Technology Department. Formerly, he pursued a premedical curriculum at Louisiana State University, complimented by jobs working as both a medical records clerk at the Baton Rouge Clinic and volunteer in the endoscopy department of Our Lady of the Lake Hospital.

The Integration of Information and Ideas: Creating Linkages Through A Novel Concept Design Method

by Andrew Wodehouse, MEng, Ing & William Ion

KEYWORDS

Collaborative design, conceptual design, design method, design practice, digital libraries, idea management, information management

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the ICR Grid as a novel representation of information and ideas. Developed as a method for enhancing utilization of digital information sources in conceptual design, the name is derived from the cognitive processes (inform, create, reflect) that are systematically employed and the resulting grid output. As a prescriptive method it requires design teams to find and build information resources in parallel with creating solutions. It does, however, maintain the freedom of designers to decide on the direction of exploration and encourages flexible thinking by using an activity-based approach. The output of the method is a linked grid of information sources and their application that emphasizes their relationships and evolution over time. The paper reviews the evaluation of a prototype ICR Grid in a number of industrial scenarios using a shared OneNote document, and outlines the development path for future bespoke implementations. As digital technologies and organizational strategies continue to rapidly evolve, this work is timely in bringing new thoughts on how information is sourced, used, and managed in the development of ideas. Issues regarding team structures and interaction, information reuse, and the capture of rationale are also addressed in relation to the grid format. It is anticipated the findings will be of particular interest to industrial designers, information specialists, and the digital library community, as well as being of relevance to any organization undertaking idea generation or problem solving.

BIOGRAPHY

Andrew Wodehouse is a Lecturer in Design at the Department of Design Manufacture and Engineering Management at University of Strathclyde since September 2003. He graduated as an MEng in Product Design Engineering at the University of Glasgow/Glasgow School of Art and an Ing from the Hanzehogeschool Groningen, the Netherlands, before working as a product design engineer for a number of design consultancies, including Cambridge Consultants, Ltd. Research projects include the Digital Libraries for Distributed Innovative Design Education and Teamwork (DIDET), and Knowledge and Information Management Through Life (KIM), and his PhD focuses on digital information support for concept design.

William Ion is a Professor in the Department of Design, Manufacture and Engineering Management at the University of Strathclyde. He graduated from the University of Glasgow with an Honors degree in Mechanical Engineering. Prior to appointment at the University of Strathclyde in 1985 he spent periods with Barr and Stroud, Ltd and Yarrow Shipbuilders, Ltd. He has been an investigator on research projects in the areas of design tools and techniques and computer supported working in design, design education and rapid prototyping, and is Operations Director of the newly created Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC).

Video Sonification

by Michael Filimowicz, MFA

KEYWORDS

Audio-visual hermeneutics, experimental music, experimental video, Fourier transform, site specificity, sound design, spectrographs, synaesthesia, video mapping, visual music

ABSTRACT

Video Sonification is the process of translating, or mapping, video information into sound. This process includes hybridizing aspects of sound design, visual music, experimental music, and spectrographic sonic representation. My work in video sonification begins with selecting highly structured images—typically taken from architectural contexts—that have the potential to map well into the acoustic domain. The high incidence of repetition in the built environment makes for ideal translations into stable spectrographs, which depend on the regularly-repeating bands of Fourier transforms. A composition is then shaped that follows both visual and acoustic sensibilities, creating an experience of audio-visual synaesthesia involving combinations of abstract and representational perceptions.

BIOGRAPHY

Michael Filimowicz is an interdisciplinary media artist working in the areas of sound, experimental video, creative writing, net art, public art, and digital photography. As a writer he has published poetry, fiction, and philosophy, and as a sound designer he has mixed soundtracks for film and television. He is on the faculty in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University.

Mapping Hertzian Space: A Noospheric Atlas of the United States

by Brett Ian Balogh, MFA

KEYWORDS

Art, broadcast, FCC, GIS, information, mapping, maps, mass media, radio, visualization

ABSTRACT

This work in progress aims to map the hertzian space created by the United States’ mass media broadcast stations. This space is not definable in traditional terms of surveyed boundaries of state and local territories, but rather by electrical fields and consumer markets in the air around us. Geospatial data provided by the FCC is rendered as translucent shapes whose color is determined by the type of service (AM/FM/TV). The resulting image depicts a landscape formed by our collective communications. The project is planned as a series of print atlases as well as a web-based, interactive map database. The artist will discuss the importance of mapping as a tool to reimagine the structures we create for ourselves. In addition, aspects of how the hertzian space created through wireless media compares and contrasts with physical space will be discussed along with its use as an artistic playground for social commentary, activism and creative enterprises.

BIOGRAPHY

Brett Ian Balogh is an artist in Chicago who draws on his education in the sciences and fine arts, incorporating both traditional and contemporary technologies into his work. He has performed and exhibited at various venues in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere.