History of a Chart 5. “Guess What?”

See also:

• History of a Chart 1. “Good Times, Bad Times”
• History of a Chart 2. “Rock V The World”
• History of a Chart 3. “Where Did All the Rockstars Go?”
• History of a Chart 4. “This is the New Flesh”

—————————————————————————————–

View interactive chart here

As I began to look into the subgenres of rock music, I was constantly surprised by the genres that were having an impact. I was surprised to see New Wave perform as well as it did, whilst the impact of indie and alternative in the more recent years was also of significant note.

I was looking for a way to recreate the surprise I felt from making these discoveries within a visualization.

I had examined the “reveal” mechanism in “This is the New Flesh” so I was keen to try something else.

I wanted to  challenge the users preconceptions about the data by creating a simple game. The user was asked to make their guesses for the top genres, and simply compare their guesses to the correct answers. Seeing this in action with several users, it is interesting how people are immediately drawn into an internal debate about the genres, and are surprised by the results.

Method

This was the most complicated visualization I developed and took extensive use of Action Script 3.

Unlike the other charts, the majority of this was build within Flash CS5  (the graphic content was developed in Illustrator). In this case there was no chart to export from Tableau.

1. Plan out the idea on paper (I use paper or Ipad PhatPad). I find this to be the easiest and quickest way to imagine how the chart will look.
2. Build the individual elements in Illustrator  – creating circles and outlines and deciding on colour schemes (dictated by the red and black theme running throughout the chart when talking about rock as opposed to the other genres).
3. Import the elements into Flash Cs5
4. Duplicate the elements to create as many as you need (4 in total)
5. Convert them all into Button > Movie Clips
6. Apply  the “Drag and Drop” snippet code to each. This allowed the element to be moved around the screen.
7. Converting the “Reveal” circle into Movie Clip with timeline navigation qualities (move to next keyframe and stop), I was able to move the movie onto the next keyframe to reveal the results.
8. Convert answer circles into rollover buttons to show further information about each genre
9. Insert mini charts into “OVER” setting of button for each genre

2011

09/07

CATEGORY

research

Write comment