January 2008
29 posts
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Narrative Visualization
Based on Tufte’s categorization, one of the assignment’s in the class I taught last semester was to design a narrative visualization. It resulted in several disparate, and quite interesting, designs. Pictured below, Tarannum’s narrative was titled “An Insight into the Active Me”. Inspired by Jeff Howard’s Data Self Portrait, She analyzed her activities and...
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...but who’s counting?
I’m beginning to wonder if I will ever have a good air travel experience again. I booked my flight for the upcoming IxDA conference, Interaction 08, back in November. I figured that would be the best way to make sure I got the flights I wanted at a good price. In convincing my company to send me to the conference, I made my trip as short as possible. I fly down Friday morning, arriving in...
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Designer's Toolbelt: TextWrangler
While I prefer to leave implementation to the developers, I do have to muck with code on a regular basis. For HTML, I rely on Dreamweaver. I’ve already written about CSSEdit. When it comes to anything else, such as XML, a DTD, or the occasional JavaScript, I pull up TextWrangler. Bare Bones Software’s TextWrangler is a very simple, yet powerful text editor. It will open any file you...
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Let’s It Snow
I’m not sure which is worse: the fact that this gift bag was designed, printed, shipped, stocked, and sold, or the fact that my relatives didn’t notice until it was purchased, used to wrap a gift, and the gift was given and opened. Oh yes, the bag says “Made in China” on the bottom.
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Everything Old...
I heard a news story yesterday about a new, innovative method of ship propulsion that will conserve energy and reduce carbon emissions. Wait for it… Wind! Can you believe it? How did they ever think of harnessing the wind to move ships across the water? Amazing! Kidding aside, the kite is expected to cut fuel costs by 20%—approximately $1,600 a day. Read more about it here.
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Time Series II
In this second example from my course on Information Design and Visualization, another time series, the student found data on the number of organ donations in the U.S. over the past 15 years. The data was broken down by organ type and also specified the number of deceased vs. living donors. As you can see below, she did almost everything wrong in the first version. It only represents the total...
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In the Details: Head Phone
One of my favorite iPhone features has nothing to do with the innovative multi-touch screen or the various applications that make it so useful. As easy and fun as the iPhone’s interface is to use, there are times when you don’t even want to be bothered with it. In those instances, the headphones are the primary input device. On the cord that extends to the right ear is a small,...
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Time Series
One of the early assignments in my course last semester was the design of a time series data visualization. This example plots the earnings of Tom Hanks’ movies in a chronological comparison with the number of Oscar nominations he received. An additional indicator marks Oscars he was awarded. While a relatively simple data set, its multivariate nature made it perfect for the assignment....
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Pump Stumper
A good friend of mine related the following story to me last Friday. After breakfast today, I stopped for gas, and when I got out of the car, the guy at the next pump immediately asked me, “What do you press after entering your zip code?”, to which I responded, “You have to enter your zip code?” I walked over, assuming that it would be obvious. It wasn’t. I told him...
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Simplehuman
It always excites me to see companies succeed due to exquisite design innovation. For OXO’s Good Grips to Nintendo’s Wii, they become public lighthouses, beacons that bring awareness of Design to the masses. Simplehuman is one that may be added to the list. I purchased one of their trash cans after using one at my in-law’s. The Industrial Design is quite good, but it’s more...
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Jello is GUI
The new version of the iPhone software added a number of quite useful features (although I’m still waiting for copy & paste). I think the use of animation to indicate that the screen is in “edit mode” is really quite clever. To edit your “home” screen, you tap and hold one of the icons for a couple seconds, and then all of the buttons on the screen start to...
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Time Capsule
I’ve been planning for some time now to put together my “ultimate” back-up system. I have Time Machine, part of Mac OS X Leopard. When Steve Jobs originally demoed it, he said it would work with a drive connected to an Airport base station. I figured I could back up all three Macs in my house. I was disappointed to find that feature missing when Leopard finally released. My plan...
