JordanO_R03

I think there is a great deal to be learned from the space shuttle disaster that took place in the mid 1980’s. This is an event that could have been prevented with greater communication because the research was clearly there or almost clearly there. Either way there was substantial evidence that a red flag should have been risen and the space shuttle launch should have been delayed, or postponed all together in till the proper safety measures where meet and peoples life’s where not in jeopardy. It is fairly clear that this was more of a political accident than it was scientific, or as a result of mechanical failure. The information was there but could have been conveyed in a much better way to get the point a crossed to all of the people only concerned with money and deadlines.

The issue that was discussed both in the article and in class was the lack of information that the charts they used actually provided. There was little character in these charts and also little indicators of what the damage to these rockets actually referred to. There were subtle indicators that there was O-ring damage and to which part of the rocket it was affecting. There was also a temperature factor involved in these charts; this gave the temperatures readings at which these rockets where affected and when the O-ring took on damage.

There are many things that could greatly improve upon these charts as they stand or they could benefit from some simple changes that would make them a great deal more visually impacting. There could be a easy incorporation of color to these charts. The color red is an easily identifiable indicator of danger, or warning. If the designers were to use this to represent the damage caused to the O-ring in some form or variation it would make the graphic instantly more powerful. A second idea that would result in greater effectiveness in my opinion would be to change the icons and symbols that make up these charts altogether. This was a concept discussed in class briefly and I think could be taken to a greater depth of exploration. One member of our class came up with the idea to represent engine problems with little icons of perished astronauts. Now I think this would be a interesting concept and would certainly drive the point home more to the political leaders of NASA and our nation, but from a designers point it may also not be the most sensitive method. I think that a large-scale image of a rocket with powerful colorful graphics representing explosions would be a interesting information graphic. I think that there could be the correlation between the temperatures that a rocket is affected by represented on a image of a rocket laying on its side. One side would represent the coldest temperatures and one side representing the highest temperatures. The chart then would highlight the damage in a detailed way also informing with more detailed informative text what the significance of the impacted areas will have and how the temperature has a direct impact on the O-rings performance and safety. There is much more to concept that could be discussed in detail and this is only a first idea of how to solve this communication problem. The implication of color and powerful icons along with informative text is a start in a right direction anyways.

KarenR_R03

Our reading about the Challenger disaster was unsettling. While it’s clear that the charts produced by the engineers were lacking, communication requires the participation of both parties. Both the engineers who prepared the charts and the managers who dismissed them failed to give proper attention to the presentation of the evidence opposing the launch of the space shuttle.

The reading said that the engineers were only given a few hours to prepare the charts. The managers at NASA clearly had no interest in hearing what the engineers had to say, or they would have given them ample time and attention to say it. I found an essay by Joseph Lorenzo Hall, University of California at Berkeley, entitled “Columbia and Challenger: Organizational Failure at NASA.” (josephhall.org/papers/nasa.pdf) It said in this essay that the engineers were so rushed in preparing the presentation they would give against launching the shuttle, that they accidentally included slides that had previously been used in a presentation that was in favor of launching it. The decision- makers ought to have recognized the lack of organization in this presentation and delayed the launch at least long enough for the engineers to make their point. An engineer has no motivation to cause alarm where there is no call for it. The charts should have been recognized as flawed and incoherent.

The engineers must have waivered on how big the risk really was, however. It does not seem they made a very passionate case. I imagine the engineers must have felt the same political and social pressures to launch the shuttle. Those in charge did not want to here the reality of the situation, and it seems the engineers may have been afraid to say it.

It is impossible to say whether or not better graphics would have prevented this disaster. It seems to me that the issue was much bigger and due to problems with the organization and management of the whole program. I suspect this because of the similar disaster that took place (with a different malfunction) in 2003 with the space shuttle Columbia. If the solution were as simple as rearranging the evidence, how did it happen again?

Heidi + R + 03

Pre-reading this, I knew little regarding the Space Shuttle Challenger. I know there was a space shuttle, it launched, a few minutes into the mission it ended in failure as Challenger blew up. I thought that it was a fluke, that no previous information had been given that this mission had a high chance to fail. I assumed that if someone had important information, that would lead you to believe that lives were in danger or someone were to be hurt, they would listen and adhere to those results. If I were to get results that something I was doing has a large chance to fail I would not want to follow through, especially if someone would be harmed by my experiment. So when reading that they knew the mission was in danger and there was a large chance that it was going to fail, it shocked me to know that they went through with it.

Perhaps NASA decided to go through with the mission because so much was invested. It can be argued that they gave the engineers time to think of reasons to not launch, but with only 4 hours of prep time to speculate why the launch wouldn't work, it really was not enough time to think of reasons, research them and then design the information. The engineers knew that something bad could happen, but the way that the information was present to NASA left too many gaps and allowed them to theorize that what was being presented were just facts of what could happen, not what would happen. Because the information wasn't clearly presented there were too many if's.

It was interesting to know that if this information was designed differently lives might have been saved. Information design is more crucial then I first thought, because depending on how it is designed changes how it is read. If there are inconsistencies or loop-holes the data can often be over looked and disregarded. Things such as order and good design help make data important and useful. Keeping the data clear and easy to read is highly important as well. The order of the data is important because it helps the reader know what is important and cause and effect.

After reading this I realized how important good information design is, it could, at times, mean life or death.

umesh + D + R03

The first page of reading 03 tells the complete story of how the space shuttle challenger accident happened. How the O-rings were leaked and a torch burned completely making the shuttle exploded taking life of 7 innocent astronauts and huge loss of hard work and resources in fraction of second.

So what went wrong in the mission? What decisions lead to the shuttle carry on cold chilly weather of 26 degree, even the engineers had opposed launching the challenger, making strong concern that the O-rings would not work during such cold weather. Reading the second page, the engineers had put 13 charts faxed to NASA and long hours of debate between engineers and managers had been done earlier evening before launching of shuttle. It somehow shows that there were under certain pressure that the space shuttle should be launched, may be due to huge media publicity, or may be due to prestige issues, or may be political issue.

The reading outlines the basic fault line that the illustration or graphic were inconvincible that O-rings would fail in extreme cold weather. This may be true up to certain level. But there are other theories which can be viewed in different perspective, as sociological, management, scientific or maybe there were tug of war between engineers and administrator.

Whole idea of reading is what would have been done to illustrate the case more strong of O-ring not suitable to use during extreme weather. The engineers should have presented their ideas clearly linking all the information in one solid presentation rather producing and sending many charts.

At the end of the reading there is experiment, the clamped O-ring placed in a transparent glass of ice and other clamped O-ring placed in water. This experiment has advantage of controlled methods and comparison of O-ring properties in ice state condition and normal condition. It visually explain and reinforce its findings how it is more convincing to tell the story. So, the charts should be more compelling to story.

The video session was interesting one how the air traffic movements flow all along the day, illustrating different time-series of the country and compare east coastal activity to west coast activity. Next was the 10, how one’s imagination increases to millions of km far away and sees from universe and millions of light year distance away and zooms back to 10’x10’ square normal picnicking site. It would be more interesting, further zooming to microscopic level of 10 x 10 nano mm scale. These videos tell different views to see the truth in graphical way.

umesh + D + R02

Envisioning information

Layering and separation are tools to enrich the visual display for reducing noise. Many examples are illustrated how it has been successful. The image of IBM copier, with 300 small parts and identifying numbers with color notations clearly shows relationship among information layers. It has visual relationship with proportion and harmony with the idea of presenting the data.

Other simple example is comparison between two maps, what makes the effective and successful map? One map having all the elements contours, rivers, roads, name at the same visual levels with equal texture, equal color which produce dumb illustration and other map with layers of information and separations with distinction in shape color, value, size and use of negative area as informative means plotted with certain system and relation. The latter one strongly communicate its idea what it represent in visually comfortable and smooth way.

Mathematically what i have known is 1+1=2, but reading Josef Albers 1+1=3 or more in visual effect is interesting and convincing in manner. What does this mean in visual design? This is one of the different techniques for layering and separation.

What does layering mean to me in terms of architecture graphic? Architecture training for making construction documents has certain principles of visual graphics. Different lines with varying line thickness have different meanings. For example, taking section of exterior wall, it is made of external finish (cladding stone- 50mm), vapour barrier-1mm, thermal insulation-35mm, water repellent, cmu-150, internal finish (paints). Here the wall is composed of different layers of materials, and to represent in graphics, each material has its own line properties to distinguish from other. The purpose of construction drawing is to make the architect’s idea in reality. It should be user friendly for the construction people. So layers help to separate from one material to others and represent the section of wall in clear sense.

Small multiples show multivariate design options, seek different meanings and solution. It reveals different unseen truth in data presentation.Envisioning information

andreaLR03

This article was interesting because it approached design from a very serious angle. I knew vaguely about the Challenger tragedy before reading this article but, I was unaware there was such suspicion before the launch and that scientists wanted to cancel the launch. Successful graphs or not, I would think NASA would not launch a rocket if they had serious doubt about the safety. I'm very shocked they would put so many people, and so much work in serious jeopardy just to meet a deadline.

In addition to the willingness to ignore scientists protesting the launch, the whole NASA department seems to be a little confused during this time. Why was there protest to the launch only days before it was going to happen? I'm assuming it takes years to build, plan and fund such a monumental operation. Why would such a detrimental detail take so long to rise to consciousness? It seems very strange to me. I always tend see big organizations in a different light, like if something is really important and has a lot of money, wouldn't they be obliged more than anyone else to follow the rules and double check their path? Situations like this show the fallible nature of all people and that every advancement and organization shouldn't be completely trusted by the public and should remain under constant scrutiny.

The information charts made before the launching and the way they were presented seemed very convoluted to me. It seemed strange that they made 13 charts, each focusing on different information. I think that less is more, the more information one is presenting the more confusing it is for a viewer to understand. To get an understanding of something all the information must be together. That seems fairly obvious, so it's kind of strange to read about these charts.

The charts used during the trial after the accident were not much improved for the charts used before it. They focused on imagery using little rockets labeled with numbers. To me, these charts communicated almost nothing. They were really busy, and the numbers were so small, especially compared to the goofy over-sized graphics. I didn't like looking at these charts, much less did I feel like making the grand effort to understand the information they were trying to inform me of.

Reading about this put into perspective the importance of design in areas aside from advertising, and making maps. Design needs to work hand in hand with research. Even with great, full information data bases, design is crucial. Bad design can turn something very important into something completely meaningly. In this way, design is kind of dangerous.