Why the Internet Makes Us Anxious — And How Data Visualization Can Help

We need digital interfaces that give users more control and context.

“Information anxiety is the black hole between data and knowledge, and it happens when information doesn’t tell us what we want or need to know.”

This quote is from designer Richard Saul Wurman’s influential book, Information Anxiety, published in 1989. Wurman was responding to the emerging influx of information at the time. Cultural trends, media, and new technologies were resulting in more TV to watch, more news to read, increasingly sensational language, and an inundation of new electronics to master. He noticed that even as people absorbed more information, they still felt uninformed and also increasingly anxious about it.

He pointed out that this anxiety is related to design — that the information we access, and how we access it, is often not in our control.

“Information anxiety is the black hole between data and knowledge, and it happens when information doesn’t tell us what we want or need to know.”

Wurman wrote his book 30 years ago, long before the internet took off. And his words are arguably even more relevant today.

The Black Hole of the Internet

I think a lot of us connect with the image of Wurman’s “black hole” when we think about our experience online.

In 2018 adults in the US spent almost 4 hours a day on computers, smartphones, and tablets, according to the Neilson institute. That’s nearly a quarter of our waking lives. I was surprised the number was only 4 hours.

In fact, we’re spending so much time online, and we feel so distressed about it, that there has emerged a market for products designed to help us intentionally block our access to certain apps. One of these apps is called “Freedom,” underscoring how we often feel trapped by distracting and meaningless online information.

He also pointed out something very important. That this anxiety is related to design — that the information we access, and how we access it, is often not in our control.

If you are a digital product manager or digital designer, you probably genuinely love new technologies, and maybe even love the internet, or at least believe in its power as a tool for good. But you may also be wondering how you can cut through the online chaos instead of adding to it. You want to create a beautiful and useful digital tool, website, or app. And the feeling you are hoping to inspire with your work is probably not anxiety.

Large parts of our information anxiety has to do with content and communication, culture, politics, and complicated problems both perennial and specific to our particular time. I’m not going to get into all of these issues. But I do want to talk about the digital tools we use.

I believe certain approaches to UX design, and specifically, data visualization, can help us gain a better understanding of our world. They can help us feel more in control — and less anxious.

Current Interfaces Aren’t Enough

Wurman was right when he pointed out that part of the problem with information anxiety has to do with design and control. The design problem is this: we have online platforms, applications, and web pages that are indeed very helpful in many ways. However, they often don’t present information in ways that allow users to see the big picture. They give us access to a flood of information, and even targeted specifics, but they don’t give us the additional control we sometimes need to make that information meaningful. And this is partly because they don’t let us decide for ourselves what “meaningful” is; generally, interfaces are always driving users to particular predetermined end-goals, and information is presented or withheld to make that journey smooth. Sometimes this makes sense, and sometimes it doesn’t.

I believe certain types of digital design, and specifically, data visualization, can help us gain a better understanding of our world.

At the moment, we have two main ways of getting information from the internet: we search (e.g. Google) and browse (e.g. large web stores, social media platforms). Usually, these experiences are very guided by the invisible hand of the designer. This can be great — users often appreciate a guided, curated approach when they use websites and apps, in addition to this approach having obvious business benefits for the platform’s owner. But there are scenarios when offering users freer exploration of data is both appropriate for businesses and sorely needed.

For instance: A search engine helps users pinpoint topics, but it doesn’t help us comprehend the overall breadth of content on the internet, the patterns it contains, or connections between subjects. A well-designed web store doesn’t usually help us understand overall consumer patterns or how the things we buy connect to where they are made. Social media platforms use algorithms to feed us content based on other content we’ve already seen and engaged with, trapping us in comfortable information feedback loops and social media bubbles.

There are scenarios when offering users freer exploration of data is both appropriate for businesses and sorely needed.

This is where certain approaches to data visualization can help.

Visualizing Information: Explain and Explore

When we say “data visualization” most of us probably picture graphs, charts, maps, or the beautiful interactive infographics that have become increasingly popular in recent times. These are all great tools with specific, helpful functions — they explain complex topics. At my design and research firm, Schema, we employ these types of data visualizations to solve different communication problems based on a client’s needs. An elegantly designed chart, graph, map, or interactive infographic can often elucidate thorny issues and help us understand statistics more quickly and more accurately than text alone. These visualizations can be excellent standalone illustrations of complex data or helpful compliments to both journalism and technical texts. We should use them when appropriate. I believe they enrich many designs. We live in the age of data, and the need to visualize it for narrative means is constant.

But there are also ways data visualization tools can go far beyond charts and graphs in helping us make sense of our world. Through interface design, data visualization can empower users to freely explore and navigate information in exciting ways.

Data Visualization as a Tool for Discovery

A lot of the examples of data visualization above focus on communication: on taking complicated information and explaining it. This is important, but a second approach to visualization focuses more on exploration and access.

This approach uses data visualization as a type of interface. These interfaces (often categorized as “generous” interfaces) strike a balance between a straightforward search experience, where a person knows what they want to find and are delivered content, and unstructured exploration, where a person is dumped into a sea of data without a boat and told to swim.

Data visualizations that function like interfaces facilitate discovery. They help users understand, at a glance, how information breaks down and connects: users can see categories and quantities, the relationships between then, and how the parts fit into the whole. They help users instantly see how information is aggregated.

Data visualizations that function like interfaces facilitate discovery.

When well designed, they often give the user more direct access to data. The interface becomes an open-ended research tool, where the user’s end-goal is intentionally less defined — and that flexibility is a design goal in and of itself. These tools can also prioritize giving the user a big-picture sense of scale and the ability to find connections between information sets, stories, or individual pieces of content — all of which leads to greater contextual understanding and a satisfying user experience.

Knoll’s Archive

For example, my firm designed an online, public archive for modernist furniture designer Knoll. Knoll has a deep history. The company was born and grew during a time when modernism was on the rise in the early 20th century, and the company evolved in the thick of an exciting era of innovation. Today, the company also has huge amounts of assets that document their history, and they wanted to create a public archive. Rather than a more typical website design, with a more linear structure of navigation through editorial text and images, we used data visualization strategies to create interactive interfaces that allow users to explore the content more freely and discover connections that ground them in context.

A timeline helps orient the user chronologically, while giving them the opportunity to hop around and explore connections and very specific topics.

A web view shows the same content but allows users to zoom in and out on connections between people, products, and events, elucidating vast networks, while simultaneously giving them access to specifics as needed.

A grid view also displays information chronologically and shows connections, but provides a structured, birds-eye view. All views offer opportunities for applying filters and view in-depth content.

The information a user chooses to access, and the assumed use scenarios, are very flexible — the user might be a design student researching modernism; a Knoll employee looking up a product; a potential customer curious about the company’s history and brand. The design facilitates discovery by giving the user free movement through an information space that can show scale and connections (you can explore the website here).

A Way Forward

I became an information designer because I believe design can help us better understand important issues and use the data around us to helpful ends. And while I think we’ve come a long way in terms of interface design, I think there is still so much more we can do. While new or better design may not completely alleviate society’s information anxiety, I do strongly believe it can help.

What users need is not more information, but ways to see it better. And they need more control over the act of discovery. Designers and product managers need to create new tools that give users the ability to explore the interconnected, complex webs of information around them.

This post builds on ideas I presented at TEDxSanFrancisco’s “Dare to Know” event this fall. Watch the full talk here and stay tuned for future posts on these topics.

Schema Design

Perspectives and knowledge from Schema Design. Find us at schemadesign.com.

Christian Marc Schmidt

Written by

Founder/Principal, Schema

Schema Design

Perspectives and knowledge from Schema Design. Find us at schemadesign.com.

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