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Are we, outliners fans, just a bunch of outlined mind maniacs?
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Posted by Dr Andus
May 3, 2013 at 06:34 PM
Alex wrote:
> I don’t like mind maps. I don’t
>know if I should try them so it can help me to develop more the creative
>side of the brain. What do you think?...
I don’t see a big distinction between outliners and mind mappers (at least the way I use them). I use Freeplane and it just seems to be an airier (roomier) way of constructing an outline.
The bigger difference for me is between outliners/mind mappers and concept mappers (like VUE). But I find that even concept mapping is all about logic. For a really artistic non-hierarchical person probably even concept-mappers would seem restrictive…
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
May 3, 2013 at 07:14 PM
Dr Andus wrote:
>I don’t see a big distinction between outliners and mind mappers (at
>least the way I use them). I use Freeplane and it just seems to be an
>airier (roomier) way of constructing an outline.
I would agree that there are a lot of similarities between mind mappers and outliners, but there is one significant distinction, I think. That is, in an outline there is an implication of rank. That is, that the order of the list represents some kind of structural order. While that is not always the case, it often is. For example, if you were creating a to do list with an outline, you wouldn’t feel any need to say that item A was to precede item B, which in turns precedes item C as a step in the process. If you do this same exercise with a mind map, you might feel compelled to make this ordering clear with a number. (This may be less necessary with different types of diagrams in which there is an implied order. Strictly speaking, a true mind map eschews this kind of order.)
Does the fact I feel the need to make this distinction prove Alex’s original thesis?
Steve Z.
Posted by Dr Andus
May 3, 2013 at 08:28 PM
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>I would agree that there are a lot of similarities between mind mappers
>and outliners, but there is one significant distinction, I think. That
>is, in an outline there is an implication of rank. That is, that the
>order of the list represents some kind of structural order. While that
>is not always the case, it often is. For example, if you were creating a
>to do list with an outline, you wouldn’t feel any need to say that item
>A was to precede item B, which in turns precedes item C as a step in the
>process. If you do this same exercise with a mind map, you might feel
>compelled to make this ordering clear with a number. (This may be less
>necessary with different types of diagrams in which there is an implied
>order. Strictly speaking, a true mind map eschews this kind of order.)
I see your point, which is why I used the proviso “at least the way I use them.” I think I must have trained my mind to see a mind map as an outline, partly because I make sure the nodes are only displayed on the right of the main node (to mimic an outline), and then there is also the easy option in Freeplane to switch to “outline view” and then back to mind map view.
So personally I do perceive the hierarchical order going from left to right and then down (just like an outline). But I don’t use it as a to-do list, only for outlining or reverse outlining.
Posted by jaslar
May 5, 2013 at 04:42 AM
Lately I’ve been doing a lot of professional speaking, and find that I much prefer mind maps to outlines. Probably that’s because it’s easier to keep yourself oriented with a glance—the spacial cues are quicker to decode.I also find that mindmaps are easier to brainstorm with—freer (I liked the comment about them being “airier”). I’m less worried about hierarchy at the beginning.
For writing, though, nothing beats the outliner for making sense of things, checking proportion, flow, structure.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
May 8, 2013 at 06:11 PM
Interesting thread; not sure whether it can lead to any conclusions, but here’s my 2c:
Like Cassius and Steve, I had never used outlines prior to encountering them in software form (when I did, I was enamoured). However, for as long as I remember myself, I’ve been looking for ‘my own’ ways of organising things, e.g. during high school, in my agenda I didn’t keep my contacts in one single alphabetical list, but on different sections depending on where I knew a person from, and only with their first names. So there would be a John from French lessons and another John from my school, and it would be obvious to me who was who. I guess that was a primitive filtering system.
In my first proper job I worked a lot with flat file and relational databases (FileExpress and Paradox 4.5 for DOS; those were the days); they were very useful for direct marketing, but I realised quite soon that they were not much help in making sense of things—at least not in the way I wanted to make sense of things. I’ve loathed classic database entry forms ever since; talk about losing the forest for the trees. It was around that time (mid ‘90s) that I encountered Idealist—unfortunately it did not work with Greek which at the time was my main working language. In fact I found that a large part of such innovative software was severely crippled in terms of non-Western (or even non-English) language handling. How ironic that now, in the days of Unicode and full compatibility, I work mostly in English.
But I digress. A third example of my ‘misfitting’ in respect to the way that ‘normal’ people organise information-centred work is from today: while working with a colleague on a complex proposal in MS Word 10 I had its wonderful navigation pane open on the left. Well, she asked me to close it because ‘it was getting in the way’. Sigh; now that Microsoft got it right, I hope that it won’t kill the feature because mainstream users ignore it. .