A beautiful and useful overview on visual representation is given by Alan Blakwell, with whom I had the pleasure to work at the University of Cambridge in 2007. You can read it online at the interaction design website, or find it in the Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction 2011.
The article illustrates “the most important principles of visual representation for screen design, introduced with examples from the early history of graphical user interface”.
Sabrina Bresciani, Ph.D. 