InformationDensity

Information Density

When you are putting down information for your reader, one thing you consider is "Information Density"- how much information are you putting down, in what size a space?

Think of a phone book- It has a very high information density. The writing is tiny, and packed tight. That makes the phone book a lot easier to use!

With a high information density:

• You don't have to visit a lot of pages.

• Your eye doesn't have to go far.

EdwardTufte found (where?) that people almost always prefer a high information density display to a low density display. This doesn't mean that people like clutter- But as long as the information is relevant, people prefer high density.

It appears that TextHasHighInformationDensity, and SomeImagesHaveLowInformationDensity. However, if you keep your images MultiVariate, you can get images that communicate a lot, perhaps more so than text, and usually much clearer and useful.

See Also

• PrincipleOfConstantInformationDensity

Related Research

• Constant Information Density in Zoomable Interfaces

Discussion

Here's an interesting question:

Consider the following:

$K5OD03L

Does that have incredibly high information density?

Or is it just random line noise I made up?

Suppose you didn't know. But then you asked me what it meant, and I gave you a decoding key. It turns out that the symbols encode an immensly complicated visual diagram.

Did the information density change?

But then I say, "Oh hoh, I was just kidding- that key book was the wrong one!"

I hand you another key book, with just one entry, resolving $K5OD03L to just "cat."

Did the information density change yet again on us?

And then I stop and say, "Oh, that's the wrong key book too! In fact, this is just part of a metaphorical explanation having to do with InformationDensity."

Is it dense?

But then I say, no it's not that either, there's just a stream of light and sound and syllables, and there's an expression with no meaning or substance, and thus there is no information density there.

(?!)

-- LionKimbro 2004-06-30 08:26:09

I feel like adding, also:

Sometimes, when we are communicating, we don't want InformationDensity.

I am imagining now a Japanese manga story.

In the middle of the story, a monk achieves enlightenment.

The next two pages (the complete layout) consists of nothing but a Zen circle.

And then the next two pages contrast, with a dialog in an information dense metropolis.

The variations of density communicate different things.

EdwardTufte must have been asking people to navigate on maps, or something like that.

Then again, you could argue that the zen circle communicated the entirety of existence in a small space, but the extremely cluttered metropolis did not. ;D

-- LionKimbro 2004-06-30 08:26:09

Less etherial:

I can imagine that if I am explaining something to someone about a program, that I may want a diagram that hides 70% of details that are helpful to me, but not to my neighbor.

I believe we should use InformationDensity as a metric that we can use, but not as something that rules over us, and decides what is better than what, in any absolute sense.

I don't believe this is a controversial idea.

-- LionKimbro 2004-06-30 08:26:09