You know a sites popular when you are 2000th odd in a queue to see a visual representation of user data on your last.fm account. And that’s the case with this beautiful tool from lastgraph. As you can see though from the screen grab below, I’m still waiting for the result. But the teaser images promise so much.
lastgraph via lifehacker
One of the things that I’ve found useful in a content matrix that I’ve been writing is using a character limit guide to see on a page at different font sizes the relative space a certain amount of text takes up. So I thought I would post it up in the manner my blog is accustomed to - ie. Other than anything else it is a repository of useful stuff and my own personal log book that is open to all under Creative Commons.
6 words / 30 Characters with spaces
On the other hand, enjoy life.
9 words / 40 Characters with spaces
On the other one, enjoy life and love it
10 words / 50 Characters with spaces
On the other one, enjoy life and prosper every day
10 words / 70 Characters with spaces
On the other hand, we thoroughly denounce with righteous indignation.
30 words / 172 Characters with spaces
On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire.
50 words / 281 Characters with spaces
On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who?
100 words / 459 Characters with spaces
On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what?
200 words / 1162 Characters with spaces
On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains.
Here’s a couple of nice infographics from Flickr. One of the things that really stands out, is that even though they are in a foreign language you can get a good idea what they are talking about just from the imagery. This is good IA. it reminds me of when I used to read comics without the words as a kid.
The definition of the word dashboard has changed markedly in our brief immediate past. In the 1800’s if you referred to a dashboard, apparently you were talking about a running board across the front of your horse drawn cart where you could wipe the muck from your shoes. In the 1980’s, if you were talking about a dashboard it was probably to do with your Chevy Impala’s instrument panel. And now in 2008 if you are talking about your dashboard, it is likely that you are referring to a set of widgets or iframes that make up your desktop or web administration panel.
In homage to the dashboard of the 1980’s, theres a lot we can learn from the dashboard design of that era that can be transferred across to the modern era.
A standard dashboard of 2008 - from an IA perspective is this as functional and beautiful as it could be?
A couple of classic dashes from the past
A couple of modern day equivalents
And last but not least looking at a vintage car dash that in my mind corresponds on a similar level to the way that a current dashboard is dealt with in many ways. It is mainly based around function with little detail dedicated to form.
NB - All images are linked from Flickr and are released under CC
Apparently my life can be summarised in a single image. These images are from a program called nexus that links in with my Facebook account. They are the same image with a Black and White variation. On the dynamic site I can scroll over and see the groups and how they are ordered by name and profile. This info via the very nice website infosthetics.
I'm an Information Architect working in Wellington New Zealand who deals a lot with web standards, conventions and best practice every day. This is the place where I place findings, musings and facts as a repository for myself and anyone else who might benefit.
