September 21, 2007
Information Design Watch
From Dynamic Diagrams
Design for Understanding
All of these articles first appeared on our Information Design Watch blog. Please visit the blog to view additional entries not included in the newsletter. You also can register and comment on most posts.
In This Issue:
INFORMATION DESIGN
- Timeline and Timeplot: Open Source Tools from MIT
INTERFACE DESIGN
- People Scroll
- Mood Music
VISUAL EXPLANATION
- Dance Notation Bureau Rebounds
INFORMATION DESIGN
Timeline and Timeplot: Open Source Tools from MIT
Posted by Mac McBurney
Two cool ways to display events and overlay data on a timeline, from the SIMILE group at MIT. Just add XML.
"Timeline is a DHTML-based AJAXy widget for visualizing time-based events. It is like Google Maps for time-based information." Be sure to check out the filtering and highlighting functions in the Dinosaurs example.
http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/
Timeplot is newer (maybe buggier) and allows additional data to be plotted on a timeline.
http://simile.mit.edu/timeplot/
INTERFACE DESIGN
Mood Music
Posted by Lisa Agustin
I've been having some fun with Musicovery, an interactive radio with a basic premise: What are you in the mood for? Users can zero in on what they like (single or multiple genres across a narrow or broad timeframe), but they can also use the remote control-like interface to select their mood within a matrix ranging from "Dark" to "Positive" and "Calm" to "Energetic." The result of these intersecting parameters is a customized playlist presented in a interconnected web, where each song can be played or purchased unobtrusively through eBay, iTunes or Amazon. The site is intuitive for the most part, but the resulting music web needs some minor presentation tweaks: songs sometimes show up on top of each other, requiring the user to pick a hidden song in order to see its name; and the vertically-oriented webs are sometimes larger than the browser window, requiring some dragging. It would also be nice to see a complete browseable catalog of all the albums (although admittedly this might take away some of the serendipity of hearing something new.)
People Scroll
Posted by Henry Woodbury
In a Boxes and Arrows article titled Blasting the Myth of the Fold, Milissa Tarquini runs through research that shows that browser users really do scroll down long pages. Here's just one of her examples:
In [a report available on ClickTale.com], the researchers used their proprietary tracking software to measure the activity of 120,000 pages. Their research gives data on the vertical height of the page and the point to which a user scrolls. In the study, they found that 76% of users scrolled and that a good portion of them scrolled all the way to the bottom, despite the height of the screen. Even the longest of web pages were scrolled to the bottom.
My question is this: If people scroll, do we need "back to top" links?
VISUAL EXPLANATION
Dance Notation Bureau Rebounds
Posted by Henry Woodbury
After flirting with insolvency in 2005, the Dance Notation Bureau has new funding and a broader mission, including the digitization of its entire collection of "scores, films, videotapes, photographs, programs and posters."
Students of visual explanation may be familiar with the concept of dance scoring through the works of Edward Tufte. The Dance Notation Bureau uses Labanotation, a particularly specialized system:
Rudolf van Laban, a Hungarian-born choreographer and dance theorist, developed his system of notation in the 1920s. (Systems have existed since the 15th century, but Labanotation and Benesh notation, developed in Britain in the 1950s, are the two types most used today.) Like music notation it uses graphic symbols on a staff. But the extreme complexity and detail needed to represent timing, direction, impulse and dynamics make it the province of very few specialists.
The debate about the usefulness of the visual tool is interesting. Dance notator Sandra Aberkalns contrasts the "nuance and depth" of a score to the "dancer’s interpretation" presented in video or photographs. Some choreographers have doubts:
“The notation is based on an agreed-upon form of moving, which I believe is misleading,” Mark Morris said after his “All Fours” was staged from a score at Ohio State University last year. “It’s nearly impossible to accurately communicate dynamics and phrasing, although I grudgingly admit that it was a far better tool than I had anticipated.”
The Dance Notation Bureau web site is here.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
For more information about Dynamic Diagrams and our services, please visit our web site at http://www.dynamicdiagrams.com or email us at info@dynamicdiagrams.com. If you are not currently a subscriber to this newsletter, you can subscribe at http://dd.dynamicdiagrams.com/wp-register.php.
To unsubscribe from this newsletter, please email news@dynamicdiagrams.com with the word "unsubscribe" in the Subject line.
Dynamic Diagrams, Inc.
146 Clifford Street
Providence RI 02903
Tel: 401.223.1233
Fax: 401.223.1234
http://www.dynamicdiagrams.com