Some time ago I stated my passion for mindmaps, tables and Venn diagrams as tool to capture relations between entities.

I just realize how important a tool could be, for analytical purposes, metro maps. They allow to create many different links between many different groups.

The most famous application is probably the 2008 web trend map

In the policy domain, it’s becoming more and more popular as a metaphor of joined up policy making. Here is a map, from the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs.

I am trying to learn how to build such maps. In the meantime, I realize that Scrabble could be used for a similar structure.

So my questions are:

  • Could a Scrabble visualisation be used in the same way of a MetroMap?
  • What is the meaning of the different representation forms?
  • Is there any logical meaning in this sequence: Mindmap > Table > Venn > Metromap?

UPDATE: I would visualize my thinking as in this image – but I dont know what is the link between the elements!

thinktools