SBIR Phase I: Visual Communication for the 21st Century

这项小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目旨在测试建立一个基于云的平台的可行性，该平台用于创建和共享易于可视化和理解的信息内容。该平台将包括VizLanguage、VizTools、VizDocs和VizPublish。VizLanguage是一套规则系统，用于在数字媒体中呈现内容，以便使用可视化技术进行学习/阅读。(VizLanguage与图形组织者有一些相似之处，比如概念图，但在结构和功能上有很大的不同。这项创新的意义在于，它有可能极大地减少人们在理解、记忆和回忆信息方面的认知负荷，无论他们是否有学习障碍。VizTools将支持以VizLanguage格式编写和查看文档。VizDocs将是用VizLanguage编写的交互式多媒体文档。VizPublish将是一项允许社交创作和分享VizDocs的服务。该团队非常适合执行第一阶段的研究目标，以设计、开发和评估查看器和创作工具。这个项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是VizLanguage直接使两个用户群体受益：信息内容的读者/消费者和信息内容的作者/创造者（包括演讲者/培训师/教育者）。大众市场的商业影响可能很大，这取决于公司。吸引大量读者/学习者，以及作者/创作者添加新信息的能力。该提案也有可能让K-16教育工作者、商业演讲者和企业培训师以一种合乎逻辑的方式组织他们的材料，并尽量减少使用单词来建立概念之间的联系。该项目引起了科学家和学术机构教职员工的兴趣，他们有兴趣成为内容贡献者。当产品完全开发出来后，这种视觉交流方法将特别有助于那些有学习和处理障碍的人，并应扩大代表性不足群体的参与。该公司计划与一家大公司合作进行分销和扩展。如果成功，该平台有望帮助世界各地的人们更有效地学习、教学、培训和交流。该技术还有望在认知心理学、信息可视化、信息可及性、图形用户界面及其影响的众多领域开辟许多新的研究机会。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project seeks to test the feasibility of building a cloud-based platform for creation and sharing of informational content that is easy to visualize and understand. The platform will consist of VizLanguage, VizTools, VizDocs, and VizPublish. VizLanguage is a system of rules for presenting content in digital media to enable learning/reading using visualization techniques. (VizLanguage shares some similarities with graphic organizers, such as concept maps, but significantly differs in structure and function. The significance of the innovation is in its potential to dramatically decrease the cognitive load for people, with or without a learning disability, to understand, memorize, and recall information.) VizTools will enable the authoring and viewing of documents in the VizLanguage format. VizDocs will be interactive multimedia documents written in VizLanguage. VizPublish will be a service which allows social creation and sharing of VizDocs. The team is well-suited to execute Phase I research objectives to design, develop and evaluate the viewer and authoring tools.The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is that VizLanguage directly benefits two user groups: the readers/consumers of informational content and authors/creators (including presenters/trainers/educators) of informational content. The mass market commercial impact could be strong, depending on the company?s ability to attract a large number of readers/learners, as well as authors/creators adding new information. The proposal also has the potential to allow K-16 educators, business presenters, and corporate trainers to organize their material in a logical fashion and minimize use of words to make connections between concepts. The project has generated interest from scientists and faculty members of academic institutions who are interested in becoming content contributors. When the product is fully developed, this visual approach to communication will be particularly helpful for those with learning and processing disabilities and should broaden participation of underrepresented groups. The company plans to partner with a large company for distribution and scaling. If successful, the platform is expected to help people worldwide learn, teach, train, and communicate more effectively. The technology is also expected to open up many new research opportunities in cognitive psychology, information visualization, information accessibility, graphical user interface and the numerous fields that they impact.