Way, Way Beyond Crayons

Wecome to new blogger, Nick Duffill and his Beyond Crayons blog, which focusing on "mind mapping" tools for visualizing information. His tag line is "Businesslike visualization for late adopters."

Nick's initial post, Time for reform in mapping legislation, compared common problems seen in PowerPoint presentations to similar information design issues in mind mapping. Here's a taste of his excellent insights:

... the threshold at which decoration interferes with content is quickly reached, and you find yourself wondering if the decoration is a substitute for content.
...
... decoration must pass a simple test - does it carry any information? If it doesn't, then don't be tempted to use it.

Visit Nick's blog and you'll likely add it to your link list and RSS subscriptions, as I have.

The only thing I'd like to see him add are some visual examples of his mind mapping ideas. The MindJet software site (which Nick uses and recommends) gives some examples of mind maps, but it would be great to see just how Nick uses it in his own thinking about improving the information design of mind maps.