This document discusses how diagrams are a reflection of human thought and cognition. It makes three key points: 1) The way we organize space, whether on a page or in the real world, conveys meaning. Proximity implies relationships, and we organize items hierarchically. 2) The shapes and figures we use, such as dots, lines, boxes and arrows, also convey meaning. Likenesses can facilitate comprehension when they make sense. 3) Successful diagrams must work within the constraints of human cognition. They are refined over time based on user testing, and should use conventions like vertical for evaluation and horizontal for time. Diagrams express and communicate thought through their use of space and form.

1. Visualizing
Thought
Barbara Tversky (2010)
View on Google Slides

2. 1.
Thesis
Everything in the design world is
evidence of thought
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3. Barbara Tversky
“The designed world is a diagram”
“The arrangements and
organizations used to design
the world create diagrams in
the world”
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4. “
Communication in the wild is a
sound and light show combining
words, prosody, facial expressions,
gestures, and actions.
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5. 5
In her own words from Wonderfest Science

6. Gestures - wordless communication
◎ Free and always with us
◎ Fleeting
◎ Abstract and schematic
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7. Visualizations - permanent traces of gestures
◎ Use position, form, and actions in
space to convey meaning
◎ Can be inspected and re-inspected
◎ Can be in many forms
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Source: Wikipedia
“Communication design, then, is inherently social because to be understood by
another or by self at another time entails fashioning communications to fit the
presumed mental states of others of one’s self at another time.”

8. 2.
Place in space
How we utilize space in the world
or space on a page conveys
meaning and thought
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9. Organizing space in the world
◎ Proximity implies relationships
◎ Commonly created on the fly
◎ Items clustered by kind, often
hierarchically
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10. Organizing space of a page - literally
◎ Page is two-dimensional like mappings on
the retina
◎ Pictorial space
○ Ground is at the bottom, sky at the top
○ Even when page is horizontal on a table
◎ Maps
○ Go back 6,000 years
○ Often used vertically upright but still
maintain meaning with horizontal
space
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Header
Footer

11. Organizing space of a page - metaphorically
◎ Abstract concepts still constrained by psychological
traits, often making use of spatial language
○ Proximity - grouping like items
○ Center to the periphery - like the retina
○ Parallels to the page - left / right; top / bottom
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12. Parallels to the page
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Cross-cultural developmental trends in graphic productions
(Tversky, Kugelmass, & Winter, 1991)
Order
All but youngest children naturally
placed dots on a page to signify
order in a line
Interval
When it came to interval, children
only started accurately representing
intervals at 11-12 yrs

13. Organizing space of a page - metaphorically
◎ Abstract concepts still constrained by psychological
traits, often making use of spatial language
○ Proximity - grouping like items
○ Center to the periphery - like the retina
○ Parallels to the page - left / right; top / bottom
○ Horizontal directions in space
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14. Horizontal directions in space
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◎ Horizontal directional importance is inconsistent
○ Possibly due to symmetry of the body
◎ Concepts of space appear to be primary with concepts of time derived
from concepts of space
○ 20 min walk or hour’s drive
◎ The direction of time is culturally influenced and writing affects
perception of motion
○ English speakers arrange left to right
○ Arabic speakers arrange right to left
○ Hebrew speakers were mixed
◉ Writing is right to left but numbers are left to right

15. Organizing space of a page - metaphorically
◎ Abstract concepts still constrained by psychological
traits, often making use of spatial language
○ Proximity - grouping like items
○ Center to the periphery - like the retina
○ Parallels to the page - left / right; top / bottom
○ Horizontal directions in space
○ Vertical directions in space
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16. Vertical directions in space
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◎ Vertical directional importance is consistent with higher signifying
dominance over lower
○ Possibly due to asymmetry of the body
○ Eyes, ears, brains are at the top of our body
◎ Gravity also may play a role
○ More difficult to go up than down

17. Organizing space of a page - metaphorically
◎ Abstract concepts still constrained by psychological
traits, often making use of spatial language
○ Proximity - grouping like items
○ Center to the periphery - like the retina
○ Parallels to the page - left / right; top / bottom
○ Horizontal directions in space
○ Vertical directions in space
◎ Mappings can conflict
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18. 3.
Forms in space
The shapes and figures we use
convey meaning and thought
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19. Likenesses
◎ Complex and representative
◎ Can facilitate comprehension and memory
when they make sense
◎ Can interfere when they are incongruent
with the message
○ Conflicts are more likely when trying to
depict the invisible
◎ Isotype - (International System of
Typographic Picture Education) - a method
of showing social, technological, biological,
and historical connections in pictorial form.
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Source: Wikipedia

20. Meaningful glyphs
◎ Dots
○ One dimensional
○ Represent a place or point in time
◎ Lines
○ Two dimensional
○ Represent a connection - moving in space
◎ Bars, boxes, and frames
○ Represent container or grouping
○ More like a three dimensional box
◎ Arrows
○ Represent relationships
◎ Circles
○ Represent cycles
○ People prefer to have cycles represented as circles but tend to use lines
to when asked to represent a cycle themselves
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21. 4.
Processing and
designing diagrams
Successful diagrams must work within the
confines of human cognition
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22. Processing diagrams
◎ Factors which influence processing
○ Ability
○ Expertise
○ Working memory
○ Structure
○ Sequence
○ Multi-media
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23. Designing diagrams
◎ Diagrams are refined over time through user testing
in the wild
○ Unuseful and unintuitive go unused
◎ To create useful diagrams use:
○ Vertical for evaluative dimensions
○ Horizontal for neutral dimensions, especially
time
○ Dots for entities
○ Lines for relations
○ Arrows for asymmetric relations
○ Boxes for collections
◎ Most importantly produce, use, refine and test with
users
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Source: lawsofux.com

24. 5.
Diagrams as a
microcosm of cognition
Diagrams use place and form to
convey meaning; expressing and
communicating thought
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25. Spractions
“Actions in space, whether on objects or as
gestures, that create abstractions in the mind
and patterns in the world”
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26. Explore further
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27. 27
Gestures convey meaning without words

28. Podcasts featuring Barbara Tversky
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Think Again Ep 198
June 8, 2019
Making Sense Ep 168
September 10, 2019

29. Book published in 2019 - Mind in Motion
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https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/42118411-mind-in-motion

30. Credits
Special thanks to all the people who made and released
these awesome resources for free:
◎ Presentation template by SlidesCarnival
◎ Photographs by Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay
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