When will Susan stop uncovering amazing ideas? I dunno, probably never.
Subway maps of law is a great idea . . . but I've been duped before. I spent most of my first term here trying to come up with useful graphical devices for various 1L classes (example), and I came to the conclusion that with the tools available, it wasn't worth the time.
I have made it my mission to find better tools, so far with limited success. Best so far is Tinderbox, but it's pricey and novice-unfriendly. I spent half a day trying to squash my contracts outline into it before giving up.
EDIT: Catherine just reminded me of some of the great visualization tools that could become part of the subway map:
- TouchGraph's GoogleBrowser. It's like seeing Google's brain.
- Everything on Ben Fry's website. No one does data visualization like he does.
- David Crow likes treemaps. I do too.