What is information? And how do we best convey a set of information to someone without having to go through hours of talking and dozens of charts?
Most people aren't familiar with the discipline of "Information Design," let alone how important it can be in simplifying our lives.
Typically, we don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about how to convey a whole bunch of — for example, financial — information to someone. And few of us have actually been trained in the fine art of looking at 30 different sets of charts and numbers, and combining everything onto a single page or two in such a way that it not only summarizes everything, but is also easy to understand.
I got to thinking about how much I actually still use this rather esoteric skill this morning, as I was updating my chart of crypto accounts and blogging endeavors... and realized that in a single — and not very complicated — spreadsheet I actually had a complete overview of my posts, my rewards, the daily price of several cryptos, the value of my total holdings and more... as well as the daily price of Steem and SBD, Bitcoin and a few others.
For most people, what I keep track of would require 5-10 individual charts to track.
From that single chart, I can extract all the information I need to calculate our taxes... and have an accurate record of the growth of our holdings. It's quick and fairly easy to manage.
Ironically, the process of effective Information Design originally was interesting to me because I am somewhat lazy and always try to keep things as simple as possible. Why keep 10 sets of information if you can keep just one?
I'm grateful for some of these lessons I learned a long time ago!
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great final few days of your week!
***How about YOU? Are you familiar with "information design?" Do you sometimes wish you could take a LOT of information and communicate it simply and effectively to others? Do leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — NOT A CROSSPOST!!!)
Created at 20220128 00:43 PST
x348***