Organizing Things

The first step in transforming data is to play with its organization. This is one of those simple yet crucial processes that seems worthless until you discover something through it that you had never seen before. Realize that the very organization of things affects the way we interpret and understand the separate pieces. Take any set of things: students in a classroom, financials for a company, information about a city, or animals in a zoo. How would you organize these? Which is best?

Richard Saul Wurman suggests five ways to organize everything but seven is clearer to me. Everything (and I mean everything) can be organized in one of these ways: by Alphabet, Location, Time, Continuum, Number, or Category. A last way of organizing things can often be Randomly (in other words, by not organizing them). If you can think of another, let us know.

The point of this understanding is that there are usually better ways to organize data then the traditional ones that first come to mind. Each organization of the same set of data expresses different attributes an messages of this set. It is important to experiment, reflect, and choose which organization best communicates our messages. What is also important to note is that these seven ways of organizing things make it easy to brainstorm new presentations but it is up to us to choose the appropriate ones.

Alphabets

Just about any book has an alphabetical index because while we may know exactly what we are looking for, we often do not know where it is. Though the alphabet is an arbitrary sequence of symbols, indexes work because we have been taught the sequence early and it has been reinforced throughout our lives. It is not universally useful as you will find if you ever try to use a phone directory in a language that uses a different alphabet than what you are use to. Many indexes are organized alphabetically but few products (mostly Dictionaries and Encyclopedias). This is because few data have any great meaning based on the first letter of their respective labels. In actuality, the alphabet is a continuum (from A to Z) but it is a special one for the reasons stated above.

locations

Locations are natural ways of organizing data whose importance lies in their relation or connection to other data. How easy would it be to find the exits to an airplane if they were listed and described in text with no diagram? Many projects can benefit by locational organizations but seldom are simply because their designers never experimented with the idea. Producing maps and diagrams is not as easy as simply writing text, but if you have ever used an atlas or ACCESS travel guide, you know how much better a sense of a place you get when things are oriented by their relationships geographically. Consider a subway map that simply lists all station stops in sequence versus one that arrange them in some semblance of the city they serve. This may sound obvious (and it should be), but then why do car manuals not organize parts by their location in the car, or medical books by location in the body (the one sure thing you know when you aren't feeling well?

Time

Organizing things by time may sound obvious for bus and train schedules or historic timelines but it can be just as effective for instructions such as cooking, driving, or building. Time need not be addressed only in minutes and hours, but in days, months, years, centuries, processes, or milestones.

Continuums

Any qualitative comparison can be describe with a continuum. All ratings systems, whether numbers of stars or numbers of RBIs indicate a value scale. Arranging items in a continuum indicates that this value scale is the most important aspect of the data. As with any organization of data, the primary organization expresses a different message and importance than other organizations.

Numbers

I categorize number systems as a separate way of arranging things. Much like alphabets, numbers are merely an arbitrary continuum (usually Base-10, since our species has ten fingers). But unlike alphabets, Base-10 numbers are much more universal because they combine together in different forms due to mathematical relationships. It is common but not necessary for number organizations to be continuums. For example, the Dewey Decimal System used for organizing books in many libraries is a number system that does not represent any magnitude or attribute but simply assigns numbers to categories and subcategories in a somewhat arbitrary way.

Categories

Categories are a common organization and a reliable one since they allow similar things to be grouped together whose attributes are usually important in some way. The specific categories, however, are crucial as they will communicate more easier than any other organization, the designer's prejudices and understandings. As with all organizations, these control the perceptions of the information.

Randomness

While this might not seem a useful way to organize things and "add value" to them, it is sometimes the best way if a challenge of some kind is involved. Think about a game where all of the pieces are arranged already or if the sequence is already determined and carefully and logically laid out. These wouldn't be very fun to play. There may be other times where random organizations present a better experience than an orderly one and it is up to us to explore the possibilities and employ good judgment.

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copyright 1994 Nathan Shedroff

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