Formatting Nodes & Node Connections

once of the most important aspects of the design of this mapping system is its ability to improve the readability of the information presented on screen. To do this clusters of nodes must be easily distinguishable from each other as well as parent and child relationships. To do this without overloading the user visually will require subtle but intuitive formatting of the node and thier interconecting lines.

children are scale down in size compared to thier parent nodes



this is inherited by all successive nodes so that sibling nodes are automatically put in relation to thier parents by association with a child node.



The inherited scaling is also cumulative so that children of children of children have the postential to become extremely small. This allows for the clean and clear representation of nested nodes. In addition the distaces between the nodes is also scales in proportion to its parent child status this has the effect of auatomatically making sure nodes fit in the available space thus reducing the possibility of overlap when displayed on screen.



Following the tree analogy each time the node map branches into a child the thickness of the line connecting the nodes is made thinner. This visually reinforces the relationship between chains of siblings and the relationship between parent an child bracnches.



Another optional enahcnement is color coding the connecting lines or node themselves to highlight group clustering. one option is to use the colors of the rainbow to create an intuitive scale ie (ROYGBIVW) like a thermal color scale to denote heirachy.



Although I have set up the map to do this I will keep the initial maps a single "theme" color / For example green for dreamweaver, red for flash, gold for fireworks and so on.