The System Diagrams: Shifting Perspectives

As society becomes increasingly saturated with information, the design of that information becomes ever more important. However, rather than reinforcing the agency of the user, many information design products limit one's possibilities for action. Take bus route maps (Figure 1), for instance. No problems emerge when looking at each bus route separately, but when users try to compare them to one another, it is difficult to understand their relationship. Only scattered information is made available, so that users are unable to form a clear, holistic understanding of how the bus service operates. Consequently, if an unexpected delay in a bus service were to occur, passengers might not be able to find and take an alternate route. © 2011 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.