Twenty years ago, I worked on a project called Global Village. It was a data visualization animation presented by Krzysztof Lenk and Paul Kahn at TED10 Conference in year 2000, and was greeted by a standing ovation.

二十年前，我参与了一个名为“全球村”的项目。 这是Krzysztof Lenk和Paul Kahn在2000年TED10大会上展示的一种数据可视化动画，并受到热烈的鼓掌欢迎。

Last year, I was saddened to find out that Krzysztof passed away. He was one of my favorite teachers at RISD. I exchanged a message with Jack Lenk, Krzysztof’s son, and he mentioned ...

去年，我为发现Krzysztof去世感到难过。 他是我在RISD上最喜欢的老师之一。 我与Krzysztof的儿子Jack Lenk交换了一条消息，他提到...

… one of the pieces I found (from my father’s work archive) was that Global Village animation — still looks great after all these years!

…(从父亲的工作档案中)我发现的一件作品是Global Village动画-这些年来看起来仍然很棒！

Because Global Village was one of the most important early projects that I had the honor to work with Krzysztof for, I dug into my archives and watched it again. Jack was right: Even after 20 years, the animation looked fresh and crisp, with almost a timeless quality. This sparked my curiosity as to why. I wanted to spend some time thinking through this project once again.

因为Global Village是我有幸与Krzysztof合作的最重要的早期项目之一，所以我将其挖掘到档案中并再次观看。 杰克说得对：即使20年后，动画看起来仍然新鲜，清晰，质量几乎是永恒的。 这激发了我的好奇心。 我想花一些时间再次思考这个项目。

There are still many key elements in Global Village animation design that are relevant to today’s UX and information design practitioners. I also realized that I learned so much from this project, which has been impacting my work for all these years since. I would like to share these insights.

与当今的用户体验和信息设计从业人员相关的地球村动画设计中仍有许多关键元素。 我也意识到，我从这个项目中学到了很多东西，这对我的工作影响很大。 我想分享这些见解。

核心概念的力量 (The power of a core concept)

When you google “what if the world is a village of 1000,” you get 273 million results. This is the core concept that we used for the Global Village animation 20 years ago, borrowed from the World Village Project by worldvillage.org, which unfortunately no longer seems to exist.

当您在Google上搜索“如果世界有1000个村庄时，会怎样”，您将获得2.73亿个结果。 这是20年前我们在“全球乡村”动画中使用的核心概念，由worldvillage.org借用了“世界乡村”项目，但不幸的是似乎不再存在。

The concept of compressing the 7.7 billion world population down to 1000 to get a clear picture of the earth’s overview was a brilliant idea. No question.

将77亿世界人口压缩到1000以清楚地了解地球概况的想法是一个绝妙的主意。 没有问题。

There’s no surprise that so many people are attracted to this concept and visualized it in so many different ways. This is a great example of how a core concept at a content level plays a significant role in creating a quality design to begin with.

毫不奇怪的是，有如此多的人被如此众多的概念所吸引，并以多种不同的方式将其形象化。 这是一个很好的例子，说明了内容级别的核心概念如何在创建高质量设计时起着重要作用。

But when you take a closer look at various visualizations, you start to realize that design is so subjective with so many possible directions to go, depending on designers’ intentions, decisions, and interpretations.

但是，当您仔细观察各种可视化效果时，您会开始意识到设计是如此主观，取决于设计师的意图，决定和解释，因此有很多可能的发展方向。

设计是主观的 (Design is subjective)

Above are screenshots of the five most-viewed videos on the topic when you Google, compared to the Global Village screenshot on the bottom right, explaining the concept of shrinking the entire world population down to a village of 1000 or 100 at the beginning.

上图是您在Google上浏览该主题时观看次数最多的五个视频的屏幕截图，与右下角的Global Village屏幕截图相比，解释了从一开始就将整个世界人口减少到1000或100的村庄的概念。

As you can see, each has its own design and visual style, remarkably different from each other. The number of visual design styles can be endless. Each designer has their own style, and each viewer has their own preference.

如您所见，每个人都有自己的设计和视觉风格，彼此之间有很大不同。 视觉设计样式的数量是无限的。 每个设计师都有自己的风格，每个观众都有自己的喜好。

Any visual design style is fine as long as it works. But it has to work across its entirety of a piece, not just in one particular scene or section. And ideally, the design system should help its audience understand the content better.

只要有效，任何视觉设计风格都可以。 但是它必须贯穿整个作品，而不仅仅是在一个特定的场景或部分中。 理想情况下，设计系统应帮助其受众更好地理解内容。

减法而不是加法 (Subtractive rather than additive)

The above shows another set of screenshots from the same videos visualizing a number of people based on a place of origin. Because it’s about geographic population, having a world map makes logical sense. However, below are questions that a designer should ask before jumping into a conclusion …

上面显示了同一视频的另一组屏幕截图，这些视频基于原籍地将许多人可视化。 因为这与地理人口有关，所以拥有世界地图是合乎逻辑的。 但是，以下是设计师在得出结论之前应该提出的问题……

• Does adding a world map enhance an understanding of the data?

  添加世界地图会增强对数据的理解吗？

• Would a world map introduce another visual element that could potentially clutter the screen?

  世界地图会引入另一个可能使屏幕混乱的视觉元素吗？

• How does it affect an overall consistency and a viewer’s cognitive load when you have some statistics displayed on a map while others don’t?

  当您在地图上显示某些统计信息而其他统计信息未显示时，它如何影响整体一致性和查看者的认知负担？

• What story do you want the map to tell, population of each region, or population density of each region relative to its land, etc.?

  您要地图讲什么故事，每个区域的人口或每个区域相对于其土地的人口密度等？

To the left are more screenshots showing the statistics on religion. While illustrations and symbols are nice to have from a purely visual design perspective, it’s not immediately clear which illustrations or symbols represent which religion. A voice-over helps, but if you miss the audio, it’s hard to understand.

左侧是更多截图，显示了宗教统计数据。 从纯粹的视觉设计角度来看，插图和符号很不错，但尚不清楚哪个插图或符号代表哪种宗教。 画外音有帮助，但如果您错过音频，则很难理解。

一致性和重复性提高了学习能力 (Consistency and repetition enhance learnability)

The above diagram shows how each video starts to build up its design system as it progresses. As you can see, some are more consistent than others. As a designer, questions you should be asking are:

上图显示了每个视频如何随着进度进行构建。 如您所见，有些比其他的更一致。 作为设计师，您应该提出的问题是：

• How important is consistency?

  一致性有多重要？

• Or is breaking the consistency and keep surprising the viewer the main intention?

  还是破坏一致性并使观众感到惊讶是主要目的？

• If consistency is important, why?

  如果一致性很重要，为什么呢？

• Which parts specifically should be consistent?

  具体哪些部分应保持一致？

• What is the balance between strictly consistent vs. space for freedom?

  严格一致的自由空间与自由空间之间有什么平衡？

内容策略 (Content strategy)

In order to answer some of these questions above, you need to understand the content. You need to be crystal clear about the core message you are going to deliver to its viewers. To get there, you need to work on content analysis and content strategy.

为了回答上述一些问题，您需要了解内容。 您需要明确要传递给查看者的核心信息。 要到达那里，您需要研究内容分析和内容策略。

So what is content analysis?

那么什么是内容分析？

Content analysis is basically to carefully go over all the available content and examine what it means. Below are some questions to go through during content analysis. Keep in mind that these questions are created with Global Village in mind. Depending on a project/product, of course, questions would vary.

内容分析基本上是仔细检查所有可用内容并检查其含义。 以下是内容分析过程中需要解决的一些问题。 请记住，这些问题是在考虑到Global Village的基础上提出的。 当然，根据项目/产品，问题会有所不同。

• What are the implications?

  这意味着什么？

• What are the interesting facts?

  有哪些有趣的事实？

• What are the shocking facts?

  有哪些令人震惊的事实？

• What emotion do you get when you see it?

  看到时会得到什么情绪？

• Does showing certain statistics in a particular order enhance understanding?

  以特定顺序显示某些统计信息是否可以增进理解？

• Are some statistics related to each other?

  有一些统计数据相互关联吗？

• Are there any contrasting statistics that could be paired?

  是否有任何可以配对的对比统计？

Once you answer all these questions, you will start to get a crisp picture of how the content should be laid out in which sequence to tell a compelling story. This is content strategy.

回答完所有这些问题后，您将开始清晰地了解应如何按顺序编排内容，以讲述一个引人入胜的故事。 这是内容策略。

Here is the content strategy for Global Village project that I was part of.

这是我参与的Global Village项目的内容策略。

• In order to present so much information that spans across so many topics, we needed to minimize a viewer’s cognitive load so that they can fully focus on the content itself (various statistical breakdowns of earth’s population).为了提供涵盖多个主题的大量信息，我们需要最大程度地减少观看者的认知负担，以便他们可以完全专注于内容本身(地球人口的各种统计数据)。
• This means minimum visual elements and clutters, repetitive and consistent layout and animation sequence per scene.这意味着每个场景的视觉元素和杂波最少，重复且一致的布局和动画序列。
• Audio should only play a secondary and supportive role to assist the overall understanding of the viewer, rather than setting a forced-pace with a piece of background music, or taking a dominant role with a voice-over.音频应仅起到辅助和辅助作用，以帮助观众全面理解，而不是用一段背景音乐来强制步调，或者在配音时起主导作用。
• Content should be laid in a sequence that flows well from one topic to another.内容应按从一个主题到另一个主题的顺序排列。
• Let the data itself tell a story by allowing a viewer to purely focus on the numbers so that it sinks in to reveal its meaning and impact on its own.通过让观看者纯粹关注数字，让数据沉入其中以揭示其含义和影响本身，从而使故事本身成为一个故事。
• Keep reinforcing the very concept of “what if a world is a village of 1000” by always showing an empty 1000 unit screen before starting every single topic.通过在开始每个主题之前始终显示一个空的1000单位屏幕，继续强化“如果世界是一个1000的村庄会怎样”的概念。

As a designer, it’s important to have a good understanding of the content that your product is dealing with in order to make its user experience as good and appropriate as possible. This should be done with UX researchers, UX writers, technical writers, product managers (PMs), and engineers.

作为设计师，重要的是要对您的产品所处理的内容有充分的了解，以使用户体验尽可能好和合适。 这应该由UX研究人员，UX编写者，技术编写者，产品经理(PM)和工程师完成。

Oftentime, UX designers may not have much control over the content that they receive. But UX designers still have enormous power in influencing the overall user experience of a product they design because all the content and information will be presented through a design system that they as UX designers create and specify.

通常，UX设计人员可能对收到的内容没有太多控制权。 但是，UX设计人员仍然具有影响他们设计产品的整体用户体验的巨大力量，因为所有内容和信息都将通过他们作为UX设计人员创建和指定的设计系统来呈现。

How do you tell a story? How do you sequence and structure a story to make it effective and easy to understand? What is the most effective design system to realize that? These are all up to UX designers.

您如何讲故事？ 您如何对故事进行排序和组织以使其有效并易于理解？ 实现这一目标的最有效的设计系统是什么？ 这些都取决于UX设计人员。

设计系统的内容策略 (Content strategy to a design system)

A designer has the power and responsibility to create a system for the product they design. A design system should be created in a way so that it fits the content and the context of the product so that the experience of the product is easy to understand and delightful to use for its target users.

设计人员有权为他们设计的产品创建系统。 设计系统的创建方式应使其适合产品的内容和上下文，从而使产品的体验易于理解，并且易于用于目标用户。

In order to do so, a designer needs to have a deep understanding of the content. Only through this deep understanding, a UX designer is able to create a design direction so that all the efforts are made towards that set direction, which will result in a design system that is deeply integrated with the content strategy. A well-thought-out design system can educate a user through a use of repetitive patterns as a system so that a user can naturally learn how things work just by using it, so that she can just focus on the content or a task itself. When that is achieved, a design becomes transparent.

为此，设计人员需要对内容有深刻的了解。 只有通过这种深刻的理解，UX设计人员才能创建设计方向，以便朝着该设定方向做出所有努力，这将导致设计系统与内容策略深度集成。 一个经过深思熟虑的设计系统可以通过使用重复模式作为系统来教育用户，以便用户可以自然地通过使用它来学习事物的工作方式，从而使她可以专注于内容或任务本身。 当实现这一目标时，设计将变得透明。

减去而不损失质量 (Subtract without losing quality)

Today, data visualization is one of the hottest areas in design, with so many data being constantly captured automatically. This means UX and information designers are more and more responsible for how to visualize those data in an easy to understand manner without causing information overload. Simplicity is the key. How to subtract as many visual elements as possible without losing the quality and the meaning becomes critical.

如今，数据可视化是设计中最热门的领域之一，因此不断自动捕获大量数据。 这意味着用户体验和信息设计人员对如何以一种易于理解的方式可视化这些数据而不引起信息过载的责任越来越大。 简洁是关键。 如何在不损失质量和含义的前提下尽可能减少视觉元素就变得至关重要。

Below shows an overall progression of three animation designs from start to finish, represented in a group of screenshots. The first one is by Dynamic Diagrams, the second by RealLifeLore, the third by GOOD.

下面显示了三个动画设计从头到尾的总体进度，以一组屏幕截图表示。 第一个是动态图 ，第二个是RealLifeLore ，第三个是GOOD 。

While criticizing others are not my intention, when you take a look at all three different designs together, it’s pretty obvious and safe to say that Dynamic Diagram has the most consistent and clear design system put in place, that carries through consistently from start to finish.

尽管批评别人不是我的意图，但是当您一起查看所有三种不同的设计时，可以很明显并且很安全地说动态图具有最一致，最清晰的设计系统，始终如一地贯彻始终。 。

毕竟，它是以用户为中心的设计 (After all, it’s user-centered design)

It’s all about how to make things as easy and clear as possible for the user. It’s not about pleasing yourself by using a bunch of cool visual effects.

这是所有关于如何使用户尽可能简单明了的事情。 这并不是要通过使用一些很酷的视觉效果来取悦自己。

Today’s UX designers need to design user experiences of complex products that have many flows branching out depending on how a user makes choices, how a user enters a particular screen from which entry point, and so on. Obviously digital interactive products are much more complex compared to a data-viz animation shown here.

当今的UX设计人员需要设计复杂产品的用户体验，这些复杂产品的分支流程取决于用户做出选择的方式，用户从哪个入口点进入特定屏幕的方式等等。 显然，与此处显示的数据可视化动画相比，数字交互式产品要复杂得多。

But regardless of the differences in complexity and media types, the fundamental approach remains the same. Just like compressing the 7.7 billion world population down to 1000 makes us understand more clearly, looking at how a content strategy and a design system impact a data-viz animation design gives us a clearer picture of its importance and impact.

但是，无论复杂性和媒体类型如何，基本方法都相同。 就像将77亿世界人口减少到1000一样，我们可以更清楚地了解内容，并研究内容策略和设计系统如何影响数据可视化动画设计，从而使我们更清晰地了解其重要性和影响。

This approach—having a content strategy, a deep understanding and analysis of content, and implementing that strategy into a design system—is what I learned from Global Village animation, which still serves as a foundation of my work today as a UX designer.

这种方法(具有内容策略，对内容的深刻理解和分析，并将该策略实施到设计系统中)是我从Global Village动画中学到的，而该动画仍然是我今天作为UX设计师的工作基础。

A bit of a background…

有点背景...

I worked as a lead designer for Global Village animation together with Stephen So, under directions of Krzysztof Lenk and Paul Kahn at Dynamic Diagrams in the year 2000. At the time, Krzysztof was a Professor at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), as well as a Creative Director at Dynamic Diagrams. I was a graduate student at RISD. Krzysztof Lenk and Paul Kahn presented Global Village animation at TED10 Conference that same year at Monterey, California. Dynamic Diagrams closed for business in 2012.

2000年，我与Stephen So一起在Global Diagrams的Krzysztof Lenk和Paul Kahn的指导下担任Global Village动画的首席设计师。当时，Krzysztof是RISD (罗德岛设计学院)的教授。以及动态图的创意总监。 我是RISD的研究生。 Krzysztof Lenk和Paul Kahn同年在加利福尼亚州蒙特雷举行的TED10大会上展示了全球村动画。 动态图于2012年停业。

Originally, TED (technology, entertainment, and design) was cofounded by Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marks in 1984. When it was rebooted in 1990, it became a popular annual, invitation-only event in Monterey, California. In 2001, Chris Anderson’s nonprofit Sapling Foundation acquired TED, and Anderson became its Curator.

最初， TED (技术，娱乐和设计)由Richard Saul Wurman和Harry Marks于1984年共同创立。1990年重新启动后， TED成为了加利福尼亚州蒙特雷颇受欢迎的年度邀请活动。 2001年，克里斯·安德森(Chris Anderson)的非营利性幼树基金会(Sapling Foundation)收购了TED，安德森(Anderson)成为其策展人。

All the statistics used in Global Village animation was based on what was available in the year 2000, representing the world of late 90s.

“全球乡村”动画中使用的所有统计数据都是基于2000年的数据，代表90年代后期的世界。