Can we differentiate information visualization from information design? This is more tricky, but here is my way of doing it. Information design starts with the data that already has a clear structure, and its goal is to express this structure visually. For example, the famous London tube map designed in 1931 by Harry Beck uses structured data: tube lines, tube stations, and their locations over London geography. In contrast, the goal of information visualization is to discover the structure of a (typically large) data set. This structure is not known a priori; a visualization is successful if it reveals this structure.
Can we differentiate information visualization from information design? This is more tricky, but here is my way of doing it. Information design starts with the data that already has a clear structure, and its goal is to express this structure visually. For example, the famous London tube map designed in 1931 by Harry Beck uses structured data: tube lines, tube stations, and their locations over London geography. In contrast, the goal of information visualization is to discover the structure of a (typically large) data set. This structure is not known a priori; a visualization is successful if it reveals this structure.
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