IsisInBlog

Persuasion by Arrangement: Intended and Unintended Consequences

Arrangement persuades every day.  Lots of us pop into the grocery store for a bottle of milk.  So why is milk always at the back of the store?  That arrangement persuades us to hike through aisles of food that we only just now realize we need.  Got cookies?

The arrangement of concepts also persuades.  At the simplest level, alphabetical order implies equality and chronology implies time.  An intentional arrangement considers the needs of both user and designer to influence effective use of information.  An unintentional arrangement risks influencing users in unintended ways.

In his book Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do, B. J. Fogg defines persuasion as “an attempt to change attitudes or behaviors or both” (p. 15).  By placing milk at the back of the store, the grocer attempts to influence buying behavior.  In the arrangement of concepts, I expand Fogg’s definition to include persuasion as reflecting a point of view.  If I use alphabetical order, I may persuade you that each item has equal value, at least in terms of the list.

Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial demonstrates one of the most elegant examples of persuasive arrangement.  She organized names on The Wall by date of injury, not date of death.  A soldier who died later of wounds inflicted in battle is therefore listed on the date of the battle.  His name is in alphabetical order with others who died on that day, so he is included among his buddies.  The survivors of the battle can visit The Wall and, in one section, see the names of their comrades.  This intentional arrangement persuades survivors and tourists alike to consider the fellowship of fallen soldiers.  It is one reason The Wall inspires more emotion than other memorial structures.

Maya Lin likes circles, so her chronology begins with a tall center panel and proceeds to the right as the panels descend in height.  It begins again at the farthest left of the panels, which grow to the tallest center point and the final names.  The name at the farthest right is Jessie C. Alba.  The others who died on his day are at the farthest left.

This may be an example of an unintentional arrangement decision with unintended consequences.  A theme of The Wall is comradeship among those who died together and among their friends who survived.  Because it is primarily an intentional arrangement, it obeys its own rules. Each name follows the previous name.  Last names beginning with an A signal a new day.  It is this rule that places Jessie C. Alba at the farthest end.  The others on his day are at the opposite end of The Wall, separated by 138 panels.  This separation implies the loneliness of death, which is the antithesis of The Wall’s theme of comradeship.

In the design process, it would have been a simple adjustment to move Alba’s name one place over to the farthest left panel, with the others on his day.  We do not know if that was contemplated.  The Wall is a work of art.  Each detail allows us to ponder its meaning.  Dying on a battlefield is a lonely experience, even if you are surrounded by your comrades.  But that is the opposite message from the other details on the Wall, which purposefully gather together those who died and the visitors who survived.  Intentional or not, in this one detail for Jessie C. Alba, the rules were more important than the theme.

Native Americans place one error in their artwork because only God can be perfect.  It is an intended error with an intended consequence.  Arrangement errors that go unrecognized have unintended consequences, possibly negative consequences that may defeat mission goals until the error is discovered.  Information arrangement is part of an entire message.  Take as much care with its details as you would with any other communication.

Names on a Memorial: Jessie C. Alba

(Today’s post honors Charlotte Winters, the last female U.S. veteran of World War I, who died last week at the age of 109.)

Reading the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (VVM) from left to right, like a book, Jessie C. Alba is the last name on the memorial. Because the names are listed in chronological order of casualty, visitors often think he was the last to die, but the VVM is not intended to be read like a book. 

It is intended to be experienced as a circle, with the names beginning at the center vertex and continuing east. The first half ends with Jessie, who died on May 25, 1968. Visitors then must traverse the full length of the Wall to the far west panel for the next May 25^th name, John H. Anderson. The names then proceed in chronological order, alphabetical within each date, back to the center vertex, completing the circle.

The first name for July 8, 1959, and therefore the first name at the top of Panel IE in the center vertex, is Dale R. Buis. He was watching a movie with his unit when a sniper attacked. The final names, from May 15, 1975, are on Panel 1W, one panel to the west of 1E. These eighteen died during the rescue of the S. S. Mayaguez and its crew. Richard Vandegeer is the last name on the Wall, not Jessie C. Alba.

Many first time visitors don’t get the circle metaphor, which I believe is the weakest element of the Wall. The entrance to the VVM is not in the center, but at the west or east for a linear, not a circular experience. Rather than a meaningful symbol, the circle seems like a quirk of this memorial. I’m not complaining. Who knows what details allowed a 21 year old college student to win the VVM competition and to overcome the extreme controversy of her design? This was Maya Lin’s first major work. Some of her subsequent pieces also include circles. If she wants the beginning and the end in the middle, that’s her prerogative as the artist.

But it leaves the problem of Jessie C. Alba. Rather than the last to die, Jessie is the first name of those who died on May 25, 1968. A Texan, Sergeant Alba belonged to the Army’s 101^st Airborne Division, Delta Company.  He died on the ground in Thua Thien-Hue at age 20. His is the last name on the last panel to the east, Panel 70E. The other 88 names for May 25^th begin 140 panels to the west on Panel 70W.

One of the advantages of the chronology is the listing together of all names who died in a battle on a given day. I discussed this feature of the Wall in my 1/15/07 post, “Comrades in Vietnam and the Somme.” The arrangement design allows survivors of a battle to visit one area of the Wall, find their comrades and relive the experience. The Memorial to the Missing of the Somme achieves the same goal by listing regiments together. In that arrangement, the flow for three regiments is disrupted to promote Edwin Lutyens’ architecture (see my 2/4/07 post, A Path Among the Missing).

Rather than promoting architecture, I believe the Wall got caught up in its own rules -- chronological order, alphabetical order within dates and no space to indicate a new date. But the VVM also has rules for keeping comrades together. Those who died of injuries are listed with the date of injury not the date of death. The missing are listed with the day they went missing. Because the first rules were slavishly followed, the intention of the second rules was lost for Jessie.

An information arrangement is built by rules – the rule of the alphabet, the rule of chronology, or something more complex. Information arrangers often get caught up in their own rules, forgetting they were created to serve a goal. When a rule becomes more important than the goal, it’s time to rethink the rules. Here’s another rule for the Wall. If one name is left hanging at the end of 70E, it can be moved to the top of 70W.

As it happens, Jessie was the only one in his unit to die on May 25, 1968. The nearest chronological deaths for Delta Company are Elroy E. Beier, May 5, 1968, on Panel 55E and Nickolas G. Garcia, April 22, 1969 on Panel 26W. Alba and Beier arrived in Vietnam on the same day, December 14, 1967. Garcia arrived on April 27, 1968, a month before Jessie died, eight days before Elroy died.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter that Jessie is all by himself on that farthest panel. His buddies probably don’t know anyone else who died on May 25, 1968. But now Jessie belongs to another group. He belongs to the group who died on that day and it does matter that he is separated by 140 panels from the other members of his group. It matters to his fiancé, Mary Ann Lopez, who wrote on the The Wall-USA, “In 1996 I got a chance to see the Vietnam wall with his name on it and since I got there at night time it was so overwhelming for me. The wall is so huge and very scary in a way. I finally found his name and how ironic it was that his name is the last one almost all by itself at the end.”