IllustrationsClarifyText

Name Illustrations Clarify Text

Problem

Often in technical documentation, diagrams and other forms of illustration are either ambiguous or poorly placed (i.e. hard to locate in reference to text). These illustrations can distract and complicate ideas rather than clarify them, making your document difficult to read.

Context

You find a need to summarize or visualize an idea that text cannot do justice to. At some point, you may envision a picture taking the place of text, or text providing the roadmap to the picture.

Forces

Pictures should fit on one page. Pictures should not be dense and too busy. Pictures should not overwhelm text. They should complement text.

Solution

Avoid rampant use of figures and tables. They are difficult to place in a document and will often require a reader to flip several page forward or backward from the referencing text.

Keep diagrams simple. If they require more than a paragraph or two to explain them, break them up into multiple diagrams. A diagram should not occupy too much of the reader's time.

Choose diagrams that can stand in for text. Consider developing diagrams that summarize or convey the guts of a body of text. Diagrams are great for perusing or providing a way for a reader to skim your document.

Try embedding your pictures or diagrams within the body of the referencing text. Make the diagram part of the text. That way you don't have to force the reader to refer to a diagram and lose his or her place in the text.

Resulting Context

Your document becomes easier (and more pleasurable) to read. You may find your diagrams as 'quotable' as your text.

In EnvisioningInformation, Edward Tufte writes:

In 1613, when Galileo published the first telescopic observations of Saturn, word and drawing were as one. The stunning images, never seen before, were just another sentence element. Saturn, a drawing, a word, a noun. The wonderful becomes familiar and the familiar wonderful.

See ArchitectsOnBlueprints

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-- ToddCoram

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I would love to see some of your examples!

I have created over 100 single page illustrations in the past 4 years, some were useful some were not. I'm still learning when a picture can be effective and when to spend time on something else. I have posted 2 of them on ArchitecturePictures, I'm also using AnimatedArchitecture to communicate movement in systems. --PaulCaswell