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December 10 2009 blog Interactive Timelines Interactive Timelines, and other kinds of “infographics”, are great tools to help convey information visually. And the interactive controls also engage people who are kinesthetic learners who learn by doing things. People are engaged by an experience they can control and explore and it provides much richer data than a simple line with hash marks and dates. I’m a big fan of Edward Tufte when it comes to the good information design, regardless of whether it’s static or interactive. I recommend his books, and if you can get to one of his workshops it will be a very good experience for you. I wanted to share some examples of interesting interactive timelines and talk about why they work from a visual and interactive perspective: Here are two that are quite similar in design and experience: Black History Timeline US Constitution Timeline What I like about these is that each one takes the familiar style of a timeline that we all know and adds some richness through both the user controls and the depth of additional content. The content in these is very well organized and presented really consistently for a great experience. I also like this timeline from the NYT about the late Senator Kennedy. It is similar in structure to the first two examples, but it adds an additional twist by including video and audio as well as photos, maps and text. Here is a very different example from Adobe . The way you navigate is different; instead of a slider bar or arrow keys, you select a year and it expands the series of dots for that year. What I don’t know is the significance of the dot size. I’m not sure what a small dot versus a big dot means. Of these examples I think this one from National Geographic is my favorite. In addition to exploring by time, you can also view by continent, and when you click on some of the creatures, there are cool 3d animations. Interactive maps are another great infographic tool, and National Geographic did a nice job of combining a timeline and a map into one really nice interactive experience. If you have data to show or explain to your audiences, infographics such as timelines, maps, interactive charts, graphs or product demos and other tools can help you get your points across in an engaging visual and interactive way.

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