View source for Graphicacy

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'''Graphicacy''' involves the capacities required to interpret and generate [[graphics]].

Interpretation of graphics is ''loosely'' analogous to the process of [[reading]] [[text]], while generation of graphics is the counterpart of [[writing]] text. However, these analogies should not be taken too far because text and graphics are based on very different [[symbol]] [[system]]s. For example, whereas text is structured according to formal organisational rules that apply irrespective of the [[content]], this is not the case for graphics. With text [[structure]], the units of [[information]] ([[word]]s) are expected to be organised according to broad conventions (such as being sequenced in orderly rows starting from top left and progressing down the page). However graphics are not subject a similarly stringent set of structural conventions. Instead, it is the content itself that largely determine the nature of the graphic [[entities]] and the way they are arranged. Because of these and other fundamental differences between text and graphics, it is appropriate that the processes involved in [[comprehension]] and [[production]] of graphics are clearly distinguishd from those involved in comprehension and production of text.


== Nature of graphics ==
The concept of graphicacy addresses the characteristic features of graphic information that distinguish it from other forms of representation such as [[verbal]] and [[numerical]] information. Separating graphicacy from [[literacy]] and [[numeracy]] helps us to understand the distinctive and complementary types of contributions that graphics, words, and numbers can each make in human communication. It shows why attempts to substitute graphic communication for verbal communication are doomed to failure (as in the case of [[Bliss Symbolics]])