There's the proverbial "arc to a story" that defines its dramatic (or not-so-dramatic) moments over time. When you make it explicit and actually identify the plot points and map them onto a time-line (as Vonnegut so famously did for Cinderella - my version below) it becomes clear that you can't have a hill without a valley and that distorted lines are indicative of action. If nothing ever happens in your life then you're either just boring or you have flat-lined prematurely and you're actually deceased.
Visualizing complex journeys with vectors is a powerful way to tame complexity long enough to get a real sense of stakeholder needs and systemic inconsistencies. This technique was used for my paper on visual sensemaking and informs maps that describe the journey of a person with chronic illness. When their path, as well as the paths of other stakeholder groups, viz. healthcare system and care-giver community, are plotted on the same time line, pattern emerges that may suggest how situations can be improved or re-imagined for better outcomes.
...more on the simple vector to come....
“Vonnegut on the Shapes of Stories” (Cinderella) YouTube. 30 Oct. 2010. Web. Sun April 2014.
...more on the simple vector to come....
