My other entries have been about physical things and today I’ll talk about a design transformation that can be applied to software.

The Magic Ink paper says that there are three types of software:

1. Information software (that facilitate learning in the broad sense)
2. Manipulation software (that allows users to create things)
3. Communication software

And argues that that designers should approach the design of information software as a graphic design problem. In other words: make Tufte-y graphics for information software. It’s ironic that for a paper arguing that graphic design should play a bigger role that the paper is very long and wordy. I recommend skimming the paper while paying the most attention to the images that show before and after redesigns.

As an aside, I think Tufte overdoes information density. He’s a big proponent of cramming as much information into available space. While sometimes the result can be both beautiful and extremely informative, sometimes the designs he espouses take too long to comprehend on first encounter. Often you just want a little data and you want it quickly. About halfway down the page there’s a redesign of the Southwest Airlines online booking website. It took me maybe 5-10 seconds to understand the redesign of the flight selection page. In addition the author’s redesign recommends a map to allow users to select their departure and destination cities over an alphabetical list. Given what I’ve heard about many Americans’ ignorance of geography, I’m not sure this would be an accessible design for all. So consider your users and the context in which they’re going to use your product!

So…what software or website that shows information in textual form could be transformed to be more graphical?