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Isotype Visualizations as a Chance for Participation & Civic Education

Eva Mayr & Günther Schreder

Center for Cognition, Information & Management

Danube University Krems

Information Visualization

… uses computer-supported, interactive

visual representations of abstract data

to amplify cognition to enable insights

(Card, MacKinlay, & Shneiderman, 1999)

and to motivate action




Otto Neurath (1882-1945)

„Statistics is a tool of proletarian battle, statistics is a necessary element of the

socialist system, statistics is a delight for the international proletariat struggling with the

ruling classes”

(O. Neurath, 1927/1994, p. 297)

Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics

„ISOTYPE“

„At the first look, you see the most important points,

at the second, the less important points,

at the third, the details,

at the fourth, nothing more.“

(O. Neurath, 1936, p. 27)

ISOTYPE

= International System Of TYpographic Picture Education

Rules

• Consistent use of the same symbols

• Symbols of the same size are repeated according to their frequency

• High resemblance to the object they represent

• Flexibly combinable, e.g. with attributes or other symbols

• Can display frequency, location, history, duration, density, …

Basics of Isotype

Isotype: Geographical Information & Density

Isotype: Education

Isotype: Political Education

Isotype: Political Information

2012 1943

Isotype: Political Systems

2012 1943

Current Use of Isotype

“We are not able to take over the old signs as they are. Adjustments have to be made in relation to the forms of today and tomorrow.” (Neurath, 1936, p. 40)

Influences in …

• Information visualization

• Pictogram design (Gerd Arntz!)

• Mass media graphics

Pictograms – Information Design & Wayfinding

Pictograms in Popular Culture

Isotype-like Graphs in Mass Media

Evaluating Isotype – (1) Communication View

A successful data visualization …

… understands its audience

… sets up a clear framework

… tells a story

Isotype …

… was evaluated, but

not systematically

not documented

… built on rules, but

partly well-documented

partly implicit to transformer

… has a narrative character

activates narrative thinking

provides guidance

Evaluating Isotype – (2) Cognitive View

Likenesses can be readily recognized, faster understood, and better memorized

(Tversky, 2011)

… results in lower cognitive load (Rehkämper, 2011)

… more ressources for deeper levels of processing -> active reception, free opinion formation

(Hartmann, 2006)

… triggers reflective thinking, reasoning, and discussion, rather than only communicating facts

(Coy, 2006)

„Reading a picture language

is like making observations with the eye

in everyday experience: […]

the man has two legs; the picture-sign has two legs;

but the word-sign ‘man’ has not two legs”

(Neurath, 1936, p. 20)

Isotype-based pictorial statistics clearly have potential, but they do not play a prominent role in information visualization nowadays.

- Why is this the case?

Drawbacks of the Isotype Approach

(1) Isotype was not included in research on graph comprehension, though some Isotype rules are supported by their results.

(Brase, 2008; Cleveland & McGill, 1984, 1985; Jansen, 2009)

(2) Otto Neurath‘s work might be rejected due to political reasons. (Ihara, 2009; Jansen, 2009)

(3) The design paradigm of a low data:ink-ratio contradicts Isotype rules. (Friel, Curcio, & Bright, 2001; Jansen, 2009; Tufte, 1983)

(4) Visual presentation is preferred by people with lower educational levels. (O. Neurath, 1933/1994)

(5) Isotype is not implemented in Excel nor in visualization taxonomies. (Chi, 2000; Rehkämper, 2011)

(6) Isotype has to be learned. (M. Neurath & Kinross, 2009)

(7) Not all concepts can be represented by symbols adequately. (Müller & Reautschnig, 2011)

Outlook

Why has Isotype potential for participation and civic education?

• It provides easy access to statistics.

• It poses no (or little) requirements concerning educational level or prior knowledge.

• It activates a motivation for active reception.

„The Isotype-way of representing statistical facts heads in the right direction

and […] we should rediscover its basic ideas“ (Rehkämper, 2011, p. 3)

Isotype – The next steps

• Making explicit the rules of data-Isotype transformation (M. Neurath & Kinross, 2009)

• Evaluating these rules systematically

• Generating modern visual analogies

• Developing modern Isotype-based information visualizations on the web

“The internet provides an unprecedented opportunity to bring these pictorial statistics, possibly in animated form,

within everyone’s reach. In this way, the ‘E’ (for education) in Isotype could regain its former status”

(Jansen, 2009, p. 239)

Isotype 2.0

= an interactive information visualization based on Isotype

• It allows users to select statistical data, display them, interact with them and discover relationships within them.

• It allows users to generate information visualizations themselves

Isotype 2.0 empowers the public by …

(1) … informing people on relevant social, environmental, or political topics.

(2) … enabling them to actively participate in society and politics based.

(3) … allowing them to inform others and help them to become active citizens themselves.

THANK YOU !

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