Daniel Bachhuber

Timelines

Or time charts or whathaveyou. Three methods of visualizing activity on a given topic over time.

Google News search result for “Apple”

New Orleans police action after Katrina

Ushahidi’s Github profile

What are the best methods for visualizing information over time, and how do you measure its effectiveness in telling a more complete story to the reader? To what degree should these tools be used for navigation versus presentation?

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One response

  1. Steven Walling Avatar
    Steven Walling

    It’s an interesting question for sure. Of your three examples: My eyes totally pass over the timelines in GitHub. I don’t even see them. As for simple interactivity, no surprise that Google wins out.

    Another interesting (not interactive) timeline is from the Wikimedia Foundations annual report from 08-09. (Starts on page six, PDF)

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