July 18, 2006
Information Design Watch
From Dynamic Diagrams
Consultants in Visual Logic
In This Issue:
VISUAL EXPLANATION
- Visual Explanation Meets MTV
- Designing on a (Really) Small Scale
- Debunking Myths About the "Developing" World
DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION
- Applying Open Source to Font Design
BUSINESS
- Flash Takes Over Video
DYNAMIC DIAGRAMS NEWS
- Information Design Watch Blog
VISUAL EXPLANATION
Visual Explanation Meets MTV
We recently came across a YouTube music video containing an amazing series of visualizations. While some might enjoy the techno backdrop of this Norwegian band (Roysksopp's "Remind Me"), it is equally fascinating to turn off the sound and see the various elements both as stand-alone visualizations and the manner in which they are connected.
The visualizations themselves range from process-flows, to pure explanation. There is a brief isometric projection model, which is one of the approaches we favor at Dynamic Diagrams. It was also nice to see one of our favorite diagrams, Harry Beck's Map of the London Underground.
And so, to see the video, please click here:
Designing on a (Really) Small Scale
Nanotechnology is science and engineering at the scale of atoms and molecules. Think about these futuristic-sounding scenarios, described by the New Scientist:
Imagine a world where microscopic medical implants patrol our arteries, diagnosing ailments and fighting disease; where military battle-suits deflect explosions; where computer chips are no bigger than specks of dust; and where clouds of miniature space probes transmit data from the atmospheres of Mars or Titan.
Now think about what would be involved in designing these materials and devices–-objects that are so tiny that nothing can be built any smaller. The NS Technology blog recently posted a link to NanoEngineer 1, software that lets nanoengineers create moving blueprints for their nanoscale designs. The NanoEngineer site's gallery of animations includes intricate gears and bearings, among them a first-time simulation of the Drexle-Merkle Differential Gear. (A much larger version of this kind of gear lets the wheels on a car rotate at different speeds as it goes around a corner.) While the static model does a good job of describing the gear's internal assembly, the animation adds another level of understanding to how the various components work together.
For more information on nanotechnology:
Debunking Myths About the "Developing" World
For the first time, select presentations from the annual Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED) conference are available online, including a presentation by Hans Rosling from this year's meeting. Rosling is a public health expert, director of Sweden's world-renowned Karolinska Institute medical university, and founder of Gapminder, a non-profit that visualizes critical world development data. With the narrative style of a sportscaster, Rosling focuses on debunking myths about income and mortality in the "developing" world.
Key to his presentation are animated visualizations based on statistics from Human Development Reports of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Created by Gapminder, these Flash-based animations rely on well-known visualization models, most notably the bubble map. This talk brings to mind two key issues with regard to information design and visualization: First, it underscores the importance of data visualization in representing complex statistical information (the viewer comes away with an understanding of the data more quickly than if it were simply presented in a written narrative). Second, it reminds us that representing complex information visually can only take you so far, and that providing an appropriate narrative may be a necessity, especially if the underlying messages are not that obvious.
Hans Rosling's Presentation at TED 2006 is here:
Gapminder's animations are available at:
DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION
Applying Open Source to Font Design
Considered primarily an approach to programming, the "open source" method is now being applied to the unlikely area of font design, specifically for Linux.
Open source type design is not a completely new idea. In 2003, a font family called Vera was developed for open-source use. Under the license terms, anyone was permitted to make new fonts based on Vera, as long as the derivatives were given a different name. The latest effort in this movement is tied to DejaVu, a Vera derivative that has sparked the interest of different Linux players:
DejaVu has caught on widely enough for it to be the default font for Dapper Drake, the latest update to Ubuntu Linux. It may also become the default font for Red Hat's Fedora version of Linux.
"DejaVu, from purely a user perspective, seems to be the one that has the momentum and benefits behind it," said Rahul Sundaram, one of nine board members for the Fedora Project, which governs the Linux version.
Taking a collaborative approach to type design has been particularly helpful in addressing practical concerns for making fonts, such as the creation of special characters or glyphs for other languages:
In the software world, creating a new offshoot is called "forking." The freedom to do so is one hallmark of an open-source project. Several designers launched their own Vera forks… The designers had initially created limited extensions to include Western languages such as Welsh or Catalan, then later took on larger and more ambitious extensions, such as Greek and Cyrillic.
The renewed interest in improving this aspect of Linux goes beyond improving typeface presentation for its own sake–it demonstrates that elements of the user interface are just as important as performance factors in offering Linux as an alternative to the Windows operating system.
BUSINESS
Flash Takes Over Video
With YouTube, Google Video and other Web sites using Flash as their video format, the animation player has leapfrogged over more established competitors:
Flash has soared from zero to No. 2 in its market in just two years, according to Paul Palumbo, research director for Accustream iMedia Research. Microsoft's Windows Media format is the leader, handling 60 percent of all streaming video in 2005; Flash has 19 percent of the market, jumping ahead of RealNetworks at about 10 percent and Apple's QuickTime, with about 8 percent.
"Flash is going to be dominant," Palumbo said. "You can embed this into the Web page and it's instantly 'on.' It's a seamless process."
The fact that Flash is embedded in the browser also means that it "plays nice" with other programs. It does not attempt to establish itself as the default video application on your system. Nor does it relentlessly bug you to upgrade to a "pro" version.
Seamlessness is a marketing decision, not just a design decision.
DYNAMIC DIAGRAMS NEWS
Information Design Watch Blog
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