An interview with…Mnemo Team

Today we are talking about infovis with people from Mnemo, a new interesting solution for knowledge browsing

1 - When, how and why have you decided to research on infovis ?

Our team consist of two designers (Tim and Simon) and the origin of the mnemo concept was a study project at the university of applied science aachen.in 2002, simon and tim have developed the first “mnemo” but it never reached daylight.
In 2005 Steffen became part of the team an we decided to release mnemomap together.

2 - Which is, to you, the most interesting project you have worked on and why

Just in that moment, i would anser this question with a single word: mnemo. but you can find out about our other projects while visiting sendreceive.de and bruysten.com

3 - On what themes are you working now ?

We like to explore the best way to assist the user searching the web.
that contains:
- interaction-design
- information-design
- interface-design
- aesthetic things

but we also thinking about how to integrate mnemo in complex teams and workflows.

4 - If you should suggest an education programme to a student interested in InfoVis, which University Course do you suggest him/her ?

Ok, on this question i like to promote two colleagues and former professors of mine: oliver wrede and klaus gasteier. both professor at the university of applied science aachen, germany. if you want to study about interfacedesign, interactiondesign, socialdesign and all the things around, these to guys may be the best adress.

But if you’re generally intrested in interaction design, you should know about:
- “human” things: semiotic, sociology, social-interaction-patterns, …
- technical things: how to master the technical challange

5 - How do you think infovis researches will evolve in your country for next years ?

We’re certain, that infovis is a very important science and will be more and more in the focus of other sciences in the next years.
That’s because designers have opened themselfs to other departments or faculties
But that’s also because other researchers have learned, that long lists of numbers are quite boring for “the rest of the world”

In the media invofis is already used for simplifying complex contexts.
The real challange is, to open up the mind of the people with ingenious visualizations but without hiding anything important

6 - When did you start to think to mnemomap ?

That was in the year 2002. but we did’t work on it.
In the spring of 2006. we completly reinvented the mnemo concept and bring it up to a state on witch it could be public.

7 - How your infovis knowledge contributed to create mnemomap ?

Oh - quite al lot.
Information visualization is always on our minds.
But always in the context of “how’s the best way, users can interact with the interface”