The visual display of quantitative information
The visual display of quantitative information
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SIGDOC '99 Proceedings of the 17th annual international conference on Computer documentation
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The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
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Designing communication: considering the dynamics of the discipline
SIGDOC '06 Proceedings of the 24th annual ACM international conference on Design of communication
Communication as reducing uncertainty
Proceedings of the 30th ACM international conference on Design of communication
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The signal to noise ratio is a common concept in radio communications and electronic communication in general. For a radio, the static is the noise. Too much static and the storm report gets drowned out, or at least you must listen closely to understand the announcer. Unfortunately, information designers do not posses a clear cut set of techniques available to electrical engineers. For information systems, taking the raw data in a system and deciding what is signal and what is noise proves to be extremely difficult. This paper will examine how the concept of signal to noise ratio can be applied to documentation. It will consider how the need to address different tasks and audience forces compromises on the writer to meet those different needs, when each audience has different definitions of which information constitutes signal and which constitutes noise.