Talk:Rich picture

This article reads like an advertisement. "Learning through understanding." How exactly would one learn without understanding?

I agree you cannot Learn without Understanding, but the content on this page is very valuable and you should not concern yourself with such trivial details.


 * You can learn your times tables without understanding that 3x6 means 3 groups of 6 --81.156.2.63 01:47, 30 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Learning your times tables is really learning by rote. It's only when you use what you have learned independently and in a relevant context that they begin to be understood. I think what the author is trying to say here is that learning takes place through the process of drawing a rich picture, not by simply observing the finished diagram (action learning). But I do agree that "learning through understanding" is a bit of a redundant statement. --Wrightdn 12:49, 23 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I came to this page "Rich pictures" from a link on the wikipedia page of an American company called XPLANE (an information design consulting company). While the term does not ssem to be one of their products or methods (I checked briefly their website and blog with their search engine), the meaning of "rich pictures" is not so obvious, and no bibliographical references are provided, so I would consider it as advertisement until such references can be provided

Rich Pictures and Mind Maps
This is not an advertisement but a good description of an element of the 'Soft Systems Methodology' developed by Peter Checkland at the University of Lancaster and documented in his 1981 book 'Systems Thinking, Systems Practice'. Rich pictures are widely used by managers and non technical staff in systems description and development, although perhaps not as much by more engineering oriented developers. It is correct to say that Rich Pictures and 'Mind Maps' are different techniques. Rich pictures have no defined structure whereas mind maps do, there is no defined sequence for developing rich pictures whereas there is with mind maps. Mind Maps were 'invented' by Tony Buzan in the early nineties and the term 'Mind Map' is a registered trade mark of the Buzan Organisation.

Ben Coker MBA FRSA Course Author, Information Management, Warwick Business School Distance Learning MBA

Rich pictures were not originally pictorial!
Just to add a little to the rich picture debate, according to Checkland (in Systems Thinking, Systems Practice, Wiley, 1981), the original idea of creating a 'rich picture' meant nothing more than to gain an understanding or appreciation of the situation under analysis. It was a little later that the term 'picture' was taken literally to mean a drawing.

Duplicates another, more detailed discussion of "Mind Maps" elsewhere in Wikipedia
This page appears to have been hijacked to discuss Mind Maps (which are covered elsewhere in Wikipedia). Rich Pictures and Mind Maps are NOT interchangeable (the comments added at the bottom of this page indicate the origins of Rich Pictures - they are attributed to Peter Checkland (Tony Buzan created Mind Maps which are a wholly different technique)).

Rich Pictures are part of the Soft Systems Methodology - Mind Maps are not. Wrightdn 11:28, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Usage as a teaching tool
Rich pictures are used as a tool for university/college students to understand the relationships between different people, procedures and hardware in a system. They are a real concept and not a product or buzzword. They are very similar to a Use Case Diagram. This article should be expanded to reflect this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.219.119.130 (talk) 15:18, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

POV Tag
I'm doing POV tag cleanup. Whenever an POV tag is placed, it is necessary to also post a message in the discussion section stating clearly why it is thought the article does not comply with POV guidelines, and suggestions for how to improve it. This permits discussion and consensus among editors. This is a drive-by tag, which is discouraged in WP, and it shall be removed. Future tags should have discussion posted as to why the tag was placed, and how the topic might be improved. Better yet, edit the topic yourself with the improvements. This statement is not a judgement of content, it is only a cleanup of frivolously and/or arbitrarily placed tags. No discussion, no tag.Jjdon (talk) 20:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)