it is my growing suspicion that we hold network visualizations to higher standards than we do to an equally abstract and complex class of knowledge representation: the traditional map. Despite the need for increased spatial literacy, it’s easy to see that there is a basic literacy in geographic visualization of information that should be expected in network visualizations. For instance, there is more information on display in the below than the two images above.

...without my even mentioning what is on display, a typical scholarly or lay observer would already have a grasp of the subject matter. This despite the likelihood that the observer is neither a geographer nor an astronaut, and so has little experience with literally seeing Europe from space or creating and analyzing spatial data. This basic literacy required to understand the representation of knowledge is contrasted with the fluency necessary to create such objects in the hope that we can develop a similar divide in the realm of network representations, which I think will only grow in popularity and ubiquity in the coming years.

Even though these maps are networks (as I’ve so often referred to the Roman transportation network) and most of the maps that people are familiar with actually display network data. But maps have a few basic standards in display of information that network analysis might stand to adopt. Some concept of representation of space (and even, to a degree, projection) as well as very simple standards like displaying water traditionally with one class of colors, and roads with another class, and so on, so that we develop a general sense of standard symbols for standard features....

The point here, though, is not to focus on individual technical solutions but to emphasize the necessity for creators of network visualizations to open a dialogue about standards and practices as well as expectations of visual literacy of their audience. As the tools to represent and manipulate networks become more common, the level of fluency with network representation has begun to highlight the low level of visual literacy among typical observers who try to “read” such representations.

How did you decide that mapping was going to be a topic you wanted to address in the courses you offer?
Mapping’s increasing prevalence in our lives is not exclusively because of technological advances such as GIS or handheld devices. Geography and related work in the social sciences speak to me in meaningful ways. I was really drawn to the writing of Graham Burnett, Denis Cosgrove, Mark Monmonier and others.... Simply showing students the decisions that mappers made demonstrates how much information we accept uncritically, and how much images participate in forming our understanding of the world. How do we make sense of information and for what purposes? How do we promote or suppress ideas through representation?.... n the design world, we are so used to image production: plans, sections, elevations, aerial photographs. And yet we assume the neutrality of maps. I want students to understand what biases go into the production of an image, what is privileged, limited or excluded.... These days, it’s become sexy to talk about landscape. What I find positive about that change is the fact that architecture has opened itself up to larger and larger scales. I think the emphasis on landscape and transportation and systems is, again, a very positive development in architectural education... So is it important or irrelevant to you to draw a distinction between a map and a diagram? Is the visual language of architecture – plans, sections, axonometrics – something different than the kind of mapping you are talking about? I think that diagrams – which powerfully distill information – reside within our maps. Maps, for me, are a more inclusive category, a larger field of information. And I think maps make evident their own subjectivity.