Trust the reader's intelligence.
Each of the five recommendations on page 326 is important, but the first is the most vital.
The Web Style Guide divides images into two basic categories: "interface and branding" and "content images." In this assignment we focus on the second category, content images. As the authors note, images can present content to your readers in many ways. For clarity, I have made some changes to the authors' categorization. In this class, we catagorize cotent images as follows:
As the Web Style Guide notes, photographic illustrations can bring "pieces of the world into your document" (325).
Page 321 in the Web Style Guide summarizes rhetoric, "the art and technique of persuasion." Study the book's discussion of ethos, pathos, and logos. Then consider the two images above. Which one do you think appeared in the Atlanta Community Food Bank's web site? Why one and not the other?
Maps are probably the most common diagrams on the Web, but maps can fulfill many functions. This one from the ACFB isn't intended to help you get somewhere. Instead, it analyzes Georgia's food banks, which means to take something apart in order to understand how its components form a whole.
In this case, the image is literally worth a thousand words of verbal analysis. Click on the image to see it full sized.
This deceptively simple example from Amazon transforms a complex process into a single, punctuated timeline. It answers many questions while remaining clear and straightforward.
Another process diagram, this time from the ACFB. Again, a complex series of steps is presented in a single, coherent image. Click on the image to see it full sized.
OutKast, in Charts, by hip hop fan and data artist Matthew Daniels, demonstrates some of the ways that the Web can present complex numerical data in engaging and clarifying ways.
Click the graphic to see it full size.
This integrated visual presentation illustrates the complex form of the dance song "What It's All About," by Girl Talk.
Click the image to see it full size.
Infographics are the most common form of integration images on networked media today.
They are popular because they allow designers to control the precise, pixel-level placement and detail of complex images.
Click the image to see it full size.