Mirror Neurons help us empathise, teach, inform

Another interesting article to from Ramachandran and here he talks about what he calls 'mirror neurons'. This talk reveals some insights into how we can teach, inform, empathise or care for others better.

Humanities meets Science.

Science meets art

In another post relating to visualisation in the sciences check out some interesting visual projects based on better understanding aspects of science. This is Visualization Challenge sponsored by science magazine is run to, "promote cutting-edge efforts to visualize scientific data, principles, and ideas" The challenge covered different media: Photography, Illustration, Informational Posters and Graphics, Interactive games and videos.


Check out some of the resulting entrants in a slideshow here on the BBC website.


Following is an 'Honorable Mention' in the Video section. A nice blend of video, graphics and music to give an entertaining and, more importantly, an informative presentation.

Animating Science

How do we communicate ideas of cells that are "smaller than the wavelength of light".

Good question.

Visually communicating these concepts must be a real challenge as it needs to show what is happening in 3 dimensions at molecular level of things we understand, but can't actually see. This video shows neatly how scientists can use drawing, illustration and animation as part of their thinking process. I find that this is where real design communication comes into its own. Design and illustration has always been fundamental to a process of thinking and not 'showing off'. Of course we need to show our thinking and that's where the presentation of our thinking turns into animations or infographics.

Unfortunately many infographics (or infocrapics) get lost in the delivery of their own beauty rather than using relevant information to make clear by way of an illustration. These infographics aren't used to work out complex ideas into simpler, more easier to understand graphics, rather they use information to force an outcome which is purely attractive without substance.

Take for example the following:
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2012/top-21-albums-of-2011/

In an effort to make the Top 21 Albums of 2011 more visually attractive the 'designer' has used different sizes of the name of the album to relate how popular it is. In addition they have used different fonts to differentiate the albums. The trouble is that the names of these albums are of different length so this skews completely the weighting given to each name by increasing its size! Why do this instead of producing a list or a simple bar chart? The creator hasn't used this as a thinking aid or a communication aid rather as a source of self gratification. Amazingly the 'designer' quotes the original source which is a simple list, not much larger in size than the infographic, but which gives more information…

Let's think about how we communicate and communicate what we think.

Mathieu Lehanneur's science based designs

Mathieu Lehanneur's talk for TED highlights some really fundamental principles of design. Is it colour theory? Typography? Is it perhaps the socio-economic impact of design?

Nope.

It's even more fundamental than that. It's about being human.

At a martial arts seminar once I heard a Systema guru speaking about styles and how to effectively make the techniques work. "Do you think this move is more like the crane style of kung fu or tiger style?" (referring to the idea that fighting systems have evolved after emulating certain animals in their habitat). The head honcho snorted and said, "Humans shouldn't need to imitate animals they should concentrate on being human".

In a similar way Lehanneur states in his opening part of this lecture how important science is to him: the science of being human because therein lies the answer to design solutions. He says,

"Science helps us understand how we see, how we hear, how we breathe, how our brain can inform or mislead us.

It's a great tool for me to understand what could be our real needs.

Marketing people have never been able to do that.

Marketing reduces things. Marketing simplifies.

Marketing creates user groups.

Scientists admit complexity, admits fluctuation and uniqueness."

Understanding how we perceive and interact with our world is essential for designing products or communications. What I find intriguing about his approach is that he looks at the real essence of the problem. Often designers talk about solving problems but really just create a make-over or 'paint it up' to look pretty (and in fairness often clients want this as a solution rather than any deep searching study into what is really needed!). This guy at least looks at the very heart of the problem and works in deep thought into the solution. Designing isn't about drawing pretty pictures it's about solving problems. Drawing helps us communicate ideas. Problem solution is about thinking. It's about seeing how we are as humans.