REPLY Information display challenge (SD6537)

[SDMAIL Bruce Skarin]

Posted by  Bruce Skarin <bruceskarin at hotmail.com>

I agree that explaining model behavior and structure can be a difficult 
challenge, especially when you are not delivering a model in person. 
Yet I also believe that there are indeed better ways to present models 
visually that will provide more cognitively intuitive descriptions for 
a wider range of individuals. As has been shown in studies by Sterman 
and others, people are very poor at interpreting graphs. Yet people 
examine, understand, and correctly interact with dynamics all the time. 
We prevent our bathtubs from overflowing, drive cars, and manage 
(although not perfectly) many other complex decisions and processes.
 
One might ask then; Why DO we continue to use graphs and static 
diagrams when we want to explain complex models? I think the answer is 
similar to the issues that occur between many professions and research 
areas. Individual differences lead us to better understand different 
symbolic representations of complex phenomena  in the world.For 
example, some mathematicians are really quite brilliant and looking at 
formulas and immediately recognizing what is going on. Other folks, 
like us, prefer causal descriptions. An account will likely prefer a 
balance sheet, and a mechanic will want an exploded assembly diagram. 
Unfortunately this probably means that there is no silver bullet that 
will work for all, but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't to find a 
broader range of tools for describing model structure and behavior.

I like the example sent as a conversation piece. While the speaker's 
explanation is half the power of the message, the visualization 
provides cues that map to far more than just the few dimensions that we 
are used to. There is the passage of time in the movement, population 
in the size, categories in color, and two other dimensions for the x 
and y position. Presenting data that is correlated (and perhaps 
causally linked) in this fashion is a great way to help people 
understand that there is clearly some underlying relationship worth 
discovering.I took a stab at bringing some similar visualizations to my 
undergraduate model on terrorism dynamics: 

http://feedbackgovernsdyanmics.blogspot.com/

It was inspired somewhat by 
the example sent in the original post (see the bubble plot), some of 
the traditional causal diagram animations, and some animation of link 
strength similar to the work done by Willem Geert Phaff and Jill 
Slinger that was presented at the SD conference:Visualising the Effects 
of Non-linearity by Creating Dynamic Causal Diagrams, by Willem Geert 
Phaff, Jill Slinger Abstract PaperThere is another post on there that 
talk about Many Eyes, an online collaborative visualization tool that 
also provides some more interesting presentation options.

http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/app

Anyway, feel 
free to take a look. Feedback and suggestions are, as always, welcome.-
Bruce
Posted by  Bruce Skarin <bruceskarin at hotmail.com>
posting date  Wed, 29 Aug 2007 17:27:50 -0400