Design Sapling.com

I recently saw Grand Canyon Adventure 3D at an IMAX 3D. At one point, they show a bar chart. The producers probably felt obligated to add some 3-D elements, so the chart’s x-axis and y-axis axes labels popped out. That’s nice. Have stereoscopic video or images ever been used to convey important information?

We display all kinds of charts on 2D paper and monitors. It’s easy to add flourishes and grid lines that don’t really help convey the information. Edward Tufte calls that chartjunk. Chartjunk distracts you from the information.

I’ll call the 3D labels of the Grand Canyon Adventure chart “z-junk” since it pops out in the z-axis and didn’t add any helpful information to the chart. I found myself thinking about how it was cool instead of looking at the chart.

Eventually, we may have 3D displays that don’t require glasses and when that day comes, expect a lot of z-junk from software designers.

Here are some possibilities for using 3D without it being z-junk:

• Showing which tool is selected in a menu
• Showing which categories of news site you usually click on
• Display the actual structure of molecules
• Displaying depth in an isometric drawing

Some of these might be more accurately conveyed using color or change in contrast, but the point is that you can convey useful information using 3D or you can just add z-junk. Let’s get it right when the technology gets here.