Michael Phelps records: Infographic
This graphic is a very nice example of how design for online information presentation can be — and should be — different from print presentation.
It’s a simple concept — compression of space. Because the line for each different swimming event can roll open like a window shade and show us a nice big chart, the graphic designer can give us a ton of information in a small footprint on the page.
You roll over the vertical bars to get details — name, date, and clock time. Orange bars represent Mark Spitz. Red bars represent Michael Phelps. Blue bars — everyone else!
I wish they would have also color-coded Ian Thorpe, the Aussie swimming phenom, but you can’t have everything.
I also would like to see one or two light horizontal hairlines at some time intervals, e.g. at 1:45:00 in the 200m freestyle. It would help me grok the data faster.
The project was conceived by sports editor Gary Kicinski and developed and produced by designer Juan Thomassie over a two-week period preceding the start of the Olympic Games. (Source)
(Graphic from USA Today.)
Related posts:
- Olympics event tracker from NYT (Aug. 8 )
- How online graphics succeed, or fail: 5 factors (Aug. 13 )
[...] su parte Teaching Online Journalism se hizo eco de las infografías gráficas que se hicieron para comparar al nadador Michael Phelps con su [...]
August 15, 2008 at 8:24 pm