
Successful startup trends: visual content is great but visual interfaces are not? - amichail

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danielha
I'm not sure you can separate it into those distinct categories. It's a
balancing act; the point will go to the startup with some aesthetics along
with intuitive simplicity.

There are certain weights you place on each factor depending on the target of
your site and what it is offering.

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amichail
One could argue that visual interfaces require a greater mental burden than a
simple text interface and so they are less likely to be as successful.

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amichail
It seems to me that startups with visual content (e.g., videos, images) have
an advantage, but those with visual interfaces (e.g., visualizing search
results) are actually worse off than ones with plain text interfaces. Is that
so?

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Alex3917
There isn't a lot of good theory behind visualizations, so I have been working
on creating my own. My thinking, as pertains to this, is that visualizations
fall into two categories:

1) Visualizations where the goal is to help the user understand things that
are too complicated to grok from raw data. Examples include histograms, line
graphs, pie charts, etc.

2) Visualizations where the goal is to help the user actually create more
complex thoughts than would otherwise be possible. Examples include mind maps,
concept maps, flow charts, etc.

The goal of a visual interface, as opposed to a visualization, is to reduce
the cognitive load required to use the software.

I think a lot of reason why we see such garbage is because many people are
choosing a visualization from the wrong category to solve their given problem.

