Week 14 Interactive InfoViz Active Research Assignment

View Hayes Valley in a larger map


I found Google Maps a little confusing at first. I appreciated that the instructional video had subtitles because there is no sound on the school computers. I figured out how to add information to the map markers, but I didn’t realize that I had to save it after editing each marker; when I clicked on the markers again, the information disappeared, so I had to go back and redo about half of them, which included looking up the links and the photographs for each one.

Interactive maps would be useful in online travel guides, encyclopedias, or any piece of digital information which documents a geographic location (cities in particular). As with the New York Times, they could easily be used to visualize election results. They could be used in education to provide students with an interactive and detailed view of foreign countries and/or cities, including national landmarks and points of historic interest. An interactive map would make a good application for any iPhone or other portable digital device, as it could be used by travelers to find their way around unfamiliar areas.

A timeline would be more useful for visualizing a sequence of events that has occurred over a period of time – such as a biography of a person’s life, or a series of historical events – whereas a map would be more useful for visualizing spatial information, as it may be used to depict how locations or objects are distributed in space. Aspects of both might be combined by adding graphics to a timeline that show the geographic location at which each event occurred.