* The Information Design Patterns site
If you have to present data to other people it can be hard to find the right kind of dynamic graph or chart to get your point across either on the Web or in a live presentation.
For example, if you are trying to present the data on war casualties in Iraq over time, you not only need to be able to show day by day, week by week, and month by month figures, but also over the span of specific events such as the initial invasion and the first invasion of Falluja.
Before you decide on the format or “pattern” you are going to use you absolutely have to check out Information Design Patterns.
Using a Flash-based presentation, the site (which was developed by Christian Behrens as part of his Masters Thesis in the Interface Design program at Potsdam University of Applied Sciences) is essentially a summary of his book The Form of Facts and Figures.
As far as I can determine the book has yet to be published, but for our purposes the Web site has everything we need because what it provides is a directory of patterns along with a description of each one, an example of the layout, implementation details (not always available), and a real world example.
So for the double slider pattern, the example is the one I mentioned above and the real world example is “Casualties of War” on the New York Times Web site.
What is really fascinating is that for each pattern, related techniques are shown. So for Simple Line Chart you’ll find examples of Multiset Line Charts and Sparklines.
You can also search for patterns by ordering principle (location, time, category, etc.); user goal (navigation, exploration, search, and so on); graphic class (chart, map, graph, text); and number of dimensions (two, three, more than three).
There’s one site referenced on Behrens’s that I have to direct you to as a remarkable example of information presentation: Gapminder World.
Gapminder World, which is powered by Trendalyzer and Google Spreadsheet, “lets you explore the changing world from your own computer. Moving graphics show the development of all countries of the world by the indicators you choose.”
You can select which statistics you want to analyze (for example, life expectancy, GDP per capita, and population size) and the data for the latest point in time available is plotted on a Flash-based graph. A slider allows you to move to a view of the data for earliest times and you can “play” the time series at a user selectable playback rate.
This presentation is absolutely fantastic (which is to say be ready to disappear down a rat hole for at least 30 minutes as you examine different attributes and how the world has evolved over time).
So the next time you’re looking for inspiration on how to deliver facts and figures now you know where to look – the Information Design Patterns site. Just leave yourself plenty of time to get lost looking through a remarkable resource.
