As we were looking for good criteria on visualization of concept maps as suggested by various partners in the iMath project, we came over this article. It does not directly provide measurable indicators, but at least gives some hands to the terminology of when a map may be good. The criteria are based on Gestalt psychology. An old rule that one cannot contain more than 5-9 chunks of information in work memory, at least was new to me. The paper introduces and illustrates graphically the visual concepts of proximity, similarity, continuity, common fate, good figure, closure and figure-ground articulation.

Derbentseva, N. and Kwantes, P. (2014), “Cmap readability: propositional parsimony, map layout and semantic clarity and flow”, in Correia, P.R.M., Infante-Malachias, M.E., Cañas, A.J. and Novak, J.D. (Eds), Concept Mapping for Learning and Innovation in Proc. of the Sixth Intl. Conference on Concept Mapping, Santos, SP, pp. 86-93

Derbentseva, N. and Kwantes, P. (2014 ), “Cmap readability: propositional parsimony, map layout and semantic clarity and flow”, in Correia, P.R.M., Infante-Malachias, M.E., Cañas, A.J. and Novak, J.D. (Eds ), Concept Mapping for Learning and Innovation in Proc. of the Sixth Intl. Conference on Concept Mapping, Santos, SP, pp. 86-93

Derbentseva, N. and Kwantes, P. (2014), “Cmap readability: propositional parsimony, map layout and semantic clarity and flow”, in Correia, P.R.M., Infante-Malachias, M.E., Cañas, A.J. and Novak, J.D. (Eds), Concept Mapping for Learning and Innovation in Proc. of the Sixth Intl. Conference on Concept Mapping, Santos, SP, pp. 86-93

Eligius Hendrix

University of Malaga