Illustrations: Human Bloodstream and Butterfly

Report date: November, 2007

Overview

Evaluation Title:

Date of report:

11/2007

Contact:

joycem [1]

Permissions

[2]
Creative Commons
Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike

General Description:

This formative evaluation looks at the first version of two illustrations, one that zooms into the human bloodstream and the other that zooms into the structure of a butterfly’s wing, both of which aim to show that Everything is made of atoms.

Major Findings:

• Most visitors thought the two illustrations showed how one thing is made of other things. Although, when asked what they thought everything was made of, slightly less than half said molecules or atoms. This may be because about half (8/14) of the visitors recognized the depiction of the atoms used in the illustrations.
• Most visitors recognized the macroscale objects in the human illustration. Slightly fewer were able to identify the butterfly as a butterfly. In both cases, visitors were much less familiar with the micro and nanoscale objects and recognized few of them, particularly for the butterfly illustration.
• In general, a majority of the visitors saw the illustrations as a zoom. There were a few points of confusion, however:
− Some (5/14) visitors did not realize that the small balls in the background were the same as the big balls in the foreground, even though they all represent atoms of about the same size.
− Some visitors (5/14) were unsure if objects on the same level (e.g., red blood cells and platelet) were in the same size scale.
• We could not determine if visitors wanted labels to identify the objects in the illustrations; half said yes, and the other said no.

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