100 Ideas for Envisioning Powerful, Engaging, and Productive User Experiences in Knowledge Work [flashbulbinteraction.com] is an online reference for product teams creating new applications for work involving thinking, with a heavy emphasis on visualization in the example domains used throughout: Clinical Research (data analysis visualization), Financial Trading (market analysis visualization) and Architecture (building information modeling visualization). Specifically written for use during early, formative conversations, it provides teams with a broad range of considerations for setting the overall direction and priorities for their onscreen tools.
The work is freely available by the creative commons license as a browsable website, as a set of highly summarized idea cards (PDF), and as a printable 143 page book (PDF).
Maybe it's just me, but I think the whole stuffy lawyer image is ok. Stereotypical attorneys may not be people I'd want to hang out with outside of the court room, but they sure know their way around loopholes. That being said, I just don't want an attourney that looks like he just fell out of a Little John video with his sweet Mercedes and Jamacian belt buckle. Oh well, I guess if you need help getting something expunged from your record, he's your man.
Certainly a lot of effort has gone in to creating this demo, and you should definitely check it out. However, keep in mind the text between the sections of the demo and ask yourself if what is claimed is actually being demonstrated.
Remember the ?Choose Your Adventure? books where you skipped around different versions of the story? The comedy team of Chad, Matt, and Rob have created a video version! Watch as the three zip around the space/time continuum and you decide what happens next. The first chapter is here, your selections will take you to YouTube. -Thanks, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin!
A lot of charm! This 17th century 260 m² Master house has been well renovated! In the heart of the village, it offers a lot of light and quietness, at the ground floor possibility to open a shop, vaulted cellar, 3 bedrooms, , 3 bathrooms, a living room, an independent kitchen, ...
Frustrated French vitners are fed up with slow sales, so they decided to try an unusual marketing gimmick: naming their wine "Le Vin de Merde" or "Crap Wine."
Restauranteur Jean-Marc Speziale and winemaker Walter Valgalier concocted their devilish little PR tactic in the caves of Gignac, near Montpellier. Speziale told Just-Drinks.com that the canny name acts as a backhanded compliment to Languedoc's underappreciated wine.
"This draws attention to the fact that we make very good wines," Speziale said. In actuality, Vin de Merde hardly lives up to its name'thankfully. Bottles sell for 7 euros (somewhat pricey by French standards) and are flying off shelves of local carriers. It seems, for now, that this publicity stunt initiated out of angst and frustration is wholeheartedly succeeding.
It's brilliant: if the customers don't like the wine, then it's their own fault for buying Crap! Link - Thanks Marilyn!
In the early decades of the twentieth century the discipline of psychology was still in its infancy, but beginning to make significant headway. Pioneering researchers were enthusiastically unraveling the human mind, and some were willing to go to alarming lengths to satisfy their curiosity.
One such trailblazer was a behaviorist named John B. Watson. In 1919, his curiosity was aroused after observing a child who showed an irrational fear of dogs. Watson supposed that a shiny new human would not possess an inborn fear of domesticated animals, but if "one animal succeeds in arousing fear, any moving furry animal thereafter may arouse it." In order to satiate his scientific appetite, he undertook a series of experiments at Johns Hopkins University to determine whether an infant could indeed be conditioned to fear cute-and-cuddly animals by associating them with scary stimuli. A couple decades earlier Pavlov's notorious dogs had been conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell; Watson hoped to expand upon the concept.
The Matrix probably would have been less exciting if the movie had to be restarted every ten minutes and the Agent Smiths inexplicably froze up during fight scenes. College Humor offers this parody of The Matrix in which the network operates on Windows XP.
We knew octopuses were intelligent, but this one is telling us something! Otto lives in at the Sea Star Aquarium in Coburg, Germany. The staff was baffled by mysterious short circuits in the night, and posted guards overnight to see what was causing the problem. One the third night, they found out it was all Otto's fault.
'We knew that he was bored as the aquarium is closed for winter, and at two feet, seven inches Otto had discovered he was big enough to swing onto the edge of his tank and shoot out the 2000 Watt spot light above him with a carefully directed jet of water.'
Director Elfriede Kummer who witnessed the act said: 'We've put the light a bit higher now so he shouldn't be able to reach it. But Otto is constantly craving for attention and always comes up with new stunts so we have realised we will have to keep more careful eye on him - and also perhaps give him a few more toys to play with.
A relative simple circular visualization of the relationships between wine varieties and flavor components. The Wine Flavor Visualization [tashian.com] shows the strength of these relationships, by parsing descriptive flavor words from over 5,000 published wine tasting notes written between 1995-2000 in a major Australian wine magazine.
An interactive widget that tracks your current eBay auctions. Data is from eBay. See both your sales forecast for Active Sales as well as the number of items up for auction. Useful widget for eBay Power Sellers.
Some readers might still remember the website "An Atlas of Cyberspaces" at cybergeography.org, now unfortunately only available as a static online archive. Back in the days, it was a very inspirational site that collected various "information maps" that explored the realm of graphical representations of "cyberspace", and of Internet networks in particular.
Now imagine a website in early 2000 that contains "visualizations" ranging from geographical ISP backbone networks, over 3D virtual worlds, to screenshots of the movies Johnny Mnemonic and The Matrix. Imagine a website that featured Brad Paley's textarc, Judith Donath's PeopleGarden, as well as Ben Fry's master thesis Tendril. It blew my mind. In fact, it was one of the main influencing factors for my own growing interest towards design and visualization. And it probably was the predecessor of the very weblog you are reading right now.
Anyway, connected to this website was a book that originally appeared in 2002. Its contents are now freely available as a series of high resolution (228MB) PDF sections available here [kitchin.org]. The book gives an interesting overview of the early years of (more "popular" forms of) data visualization, including chapters about mapping Internet infrastructure and traffic flows, mapping the Web, mapping online conversation and community, imagining cyberspace in art, literature, and film. It comes highly recommended.
Developed for the Foresight Tackling Obesities project, this causal loop map was designed to provide systemic insight into the multiplicity of factors contributing to the obesity epidemic. Behind the simple result of people becoming heavier, lies a complex web of often reinforcing causal factors that range from individual psychology and physiology to the culture and economics of food production, food consumption, attitudes toward physical activity, and structure of the built environment.
The 108 variables shown on the map - the drivers of obesity - were compiled by shiftN, from the 38 science reviews produced for the project and then vetted by the project's science team. The drivers are woven into systemic picture by the positive and negative influence arrows that link the variables into a web of causal relationships.
Snip from a blog post by Hjörtur Smárason, a marketing consultant in Iceland.
It feels surreal to drive the streets of downtown Reykjavik. The banks are lit up and people are working there. The logos are still outside the houses. The ads are still running saying how wonderful and trustworthy the banks are. Range Rovers and BMWs are still filling the streets and the parking lots. Bankers in their suit walk the streets with heavy eye brows. There?s a strange silence.
It?s like we know the system is broken, we know it?s gone, but we can?t see it. We can?t tell what?s real, what?s still there, and what are just the ghosts of yesterday, when Iceland was one of the richest countries in the world. A pale reflection of the golden age in Icelandic economy which is now going up in flames. Where?s the smoke?
The world is treating us like we?re dead. Bank accounts frozen. No business without cash payments in advance. No currency can be bought. The stock market is closed (not that I have anything left there). Imports have stopped because of closed currency markets and diapers, flour, sugar and other neccesities are selling out in the shops.
Here's a roundup of articles on research done on the doctor-patient relationship and statistics about medical care. Who knew that surgeons are (on average) taller and better-looking than other doctors? Other results cover more important subjects, like misdiagnosis or incorrect medication instructions. Link-Thanks, Karen!
Advanced style is a photo blog chronicling the way older people dress. Combine a lifetime of experience with a refusal to let anyone tell you how you should look, and you get some delightful images. Link -via the Presurfer
The law in England was to replace the wood taken for ships to the county that provided when the ship was decommisioned and broken up. So if you go to a pub in the UK you are likely to see some timber that has fought the French and traveled the world.
Oh yeah, Take on Me by the Norwegian group a-ha, a big song in 1985. But waitâ?¦ this song has been altered to match the video! That makes it worth a listen, doesn't it? -via YesButNoButYes
news - popular items
Frustrated French vitners are fed up with slow sales, so they decided to try an unusual marketing gimmick: naming their wine "Le Vin de Merde" or "Crap Wine."
We knew octopuses were intelligent, but this one is telling us something! Otto lives in at the Sea Star Aquarium in Coburg, Germany. The staff was baffled by mysterious short circuits in the night, and posted guards overnight to see what was causing the problem. One the third night, they found out it was all Otto's fault.
Here's a roundup of articles on research done on the doctor-patient relationship and statistics about medical care. Who knew that surgeons are (on average) taller and better-looking than other doctors? Other results cover more important subjects, like misdiagnosis or incorrect medication instructions. 
