Graphical Representation in Education

was responding to Stephen Hornsby’s position paper, in which he comments on the poor cartographic quality of most GIS visualizations. He says, “Fourth, the GIS that I have seen always seem clunky. The aesthetic representation of data in a GIS hardly seems to have been addressed. I have yet to see a GIS that comes close to the work of a good cartographer.” Cartography is a powerful form of communication, but to be effective, a cartographic representation must be carefully designed to convey the desired message. A GIS visualization will seldom accomplish this end because it is frequently cluttered with data that distracts from what the creator wants to communicate and the current GIS software packages still do not permit cartographic production of the highest quality. Frankly, many GIS users do not know much about cartography. Maps and other forms of visual information can certainly carry narratives, as David Staley asserted, but to do so, they must be well designed to communicate clearly the intended message. David has written about the need for such effective visualization designs.