Information Visualization & Subway Maps

One of the newer trends in data/information visualization is using subway-style maps as a platform or at least a visual metaphor. A recent example of this is a map of current web trends created by InformationArchitects.jp. Their rendering is based on the Tokyo subway map - a notoriously complicated piece of design, for a notoriously complicated subway system.

The IA WebTrends map is highly metaphorical, leaning absolutely on a pre-existing system. Any real understanding of the data portrayed requires a real understanding of both systems - the current online web-space, and the Tokyo subway. The info-consumer must rely on too heavily on a forced visual (color-based, aside from the 'trend forecast' icon-set, which is cute, but banal) language. There seems to be little consideration of other cues, such as line-weight, distance, shape... This work fails as a visualization, and succeeds at functioning like an overly-complex ven-diagram and a bastardized subway map.

There are a number of these aesthetically pleasing info-maps that come up short as a vehicle for the display of complex information. Oskar Karlin's Time Travel map is a striking example - very minimal, with sharp, bright lines. Karlin's map is not at all intuitive at first glance, as one of the comments stated. There is no immediate sense of scale or distance, and [in most versions] only loosely resembles the subway map which it is based upon.

Information visualization is a discipline requiring a great clarity of design - more architecture than graphic design, much less art. First consideration must be given to the clarity of the data, the content. Of course, the bulk of the data visualized in these subway maps is far from qualitative.