Keypointer design format
In the late 1970s, while editor/designer of technical information for medical
professionals, I explored how to predigest information for rapid assimilation. It
involved abstracting out a central summary that everyone could quickly scan,
with keywords in that summary linking out to more detailed blocks of
information to the side--see the illustrations below.. In theory this format could
extend out sideways infinitely to store an enormous amount of information, that
each reader could quickly navigate to get just the information he or she
needed. My experiments cultimated with a commission for a design for sales
flyers for pharmaceutical salespeople, that my client dubbed the “Keypointer.”
That is what I show below.
I came up with this pre-Internet, yet I think it still improves on the Web for quick
assimilation of detailed information because the eye can scan a such a page
far more quickly than a succession of web pages. Also, it helps keeps a focus
on a central narrative, retaining a sense of each block of information’s
importance to and relationship to that narrative.
The ideal medium for display of this format could be a large high-resolution
computer screen acting as a window onto something expressed in this format
extended out in all four directions from the center of the summary.
