langreiter.com plain, simple: comment-2002-05-23-6

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comment-2002-05-23-6

CREATED BY chris • LAST EDITED BY chris 8349 days AGO

Topic Maps indeed do not have any inherent visual appearance, so the specific point is void (tho it is to be conceded that the name is probably somewhat misleading). I think Alex summarizes my thinking with "without maps you would never know the shape of any continent" very well.

Maps simply give you a cognitive handle on large-scale relationships where no straightforwardly obvious one is attainable by looking at the constituents alone. My interest in maps and visualizations, however, does not at all imply that I'm not interested in "better text displays". Indeed I think that a flexible combination of map-like displays (big picture), concordances (mid-size picture, revealing more contextual detail) and detail views are a very powerful combination.

I'm currently reading up on how visualizing and actively exploring data can enhance learning, and many reports so far suggest that indeed people at all ages benefit from such techniques when acquiring new knowledge.

Thanks for making us think harder, as always ;-)