Information is beautiful
I came across this tool a week or two ago, and was amazed. It has all the events of one larger movement, The Arab Spring, catalogued in an interactive scrolling timeline, from December 2010 to the present day.
Featuring 17 countries from Algeria through to Yemen, the timeline is punctuated by coloured symbols representing different types of activity such as protest, and a change in regime. If you hover on the symbols, it tells you what happened, and provides a link to the news article about the event. Ingenious!
If only all movements in history were documented like this.
Data presented visually like this can be so much more informative than plain text. Perhaps I’m not supposed to say that, as a copywriter in training, but the marriage of words and visuals can be so much more enlightening than either alone. Infographics and suchlike might turn out to be something of a fad, but I would hope not. If you haven’t had a little browse of David McCandless’ Information is Beautiful, then borrow it. And make some learns.
Comments