The Timeline App

Timeline 1
Timeline 2
Timeline 3: Map
Timeline 4 
Timeline 5: Event Granulation

The Timeline App can be thought of as:

• The app you didn't know you needed
• Google Maps for time and history
• A Wikipedia front-end
• A future feat of design/innovation
• An educational tool
• An addiction 

Usage Examples:

Nietzsche Example:

A user is interested in the life of a Friedrich Nietzsche.

• The user looks up Friedrich Nietzsche on Wikipedia, and gets a summation of the Philopher's life, with things directly related to the philosopher.
• The user then looks up Friedrich Nietzsche on the timeline. 
• Immediately, the user is presented with a timeline that shows the same information as the Wiki article, organized by time.
• life works
• major events
• The user can also select user-created timelines
• The user then chooses to unfilter the search results of Friedrich Nietzsche's lifetime such that he/she is inundated with more things going on during that time than he/she can handle. 
• There are likely wars, other philosophers, inventions, and artists all active during the life of Friedrich Nietzsche. 
• For better or worse, all of these things try to fit into the same timeline without further filtering
• The user then adds a filter to the existing search for 'wars'
• He/she is shown wars that are going on during the life of Frederich Nietzsche's lifetime.
• The user can use slightly more advanced techniques to broaden the relative time-frame of wars to be within a larger time-frame than that of Nietzsche's lifetime. 
• The user is not longer interested in wars, and removes the filter for 'war'
• The user wants to look up all thinkers in the United States that existed in and before Nietzsche's lifetime
• The user goes to the map, and selects the United States to add a search filter for the US.
• The user adds another filter for philophers to filter the search for philophers from the US
• The user adds a filter for
• The user is presented with a timeline of philosophers during and before Nietzsche's life, from the US.
• Additional timelines are presented in 'related results'. 
• each philosopher on the timeline is linkable to user-created timelines, as well as system timelines for those philosophers.

Statue of David Example:

Instead of looking up the statue of David on Wikipedia, a user wants to see a map of the statue over time.

• The user performs a word search, and is presented with:
• a map pane
• a timeline pane
• a media viewer pane
• Major events of the statue show up on the timeline 
• Major events and locations of the statue are synchronized between the map and the timeline pane, and media pane.
• The user can select a beginning point, and end point on the map or timeline, in order to 'play' through the lifetime of the statue of David in an allotted time-frame.
• (alternatively, the user can scan the timeline manually with a panner line)
• The map and timeline play through major events and movements of the statue, from the quarry it was mined in, to the museum it is now in.
• As a map/timeline 'plays', boundaries of countries and city names etc. change with time (or they can reflect dotted representations of modern boundaries too.)
• As a map/timeline 'plays', the user is presented with related images/text of quarry locations, cities, artists, etc. in the media view pane. Images and text are linkable to other timelines.

User Created Timelines

A user wants to create a timeline

• The user has an account, with uploaded timelines.
• The user has an offline application for creating synchronized map, media, and timeline data.
• There would still be axiomatic features across the board
• changes in country boundaries / names
• changes in city locations / names
• geographical changes
• diverted / altered bodies of water

User Creates Dependency Events in Personal Timelines

A user wants to link events over time in the form of dependencies or ordered events, even back to the origin of the Universe

• Stone Age, to Bronze Age, to Iron Age, to . . . .
• What series of inventions led up to the possibility of diodes and transistors and ultimately the PC? . . . dating back to the stone age, or even the origins of the Universe?
• What evolutionary events form dependencies that exist over time in order for humans to exist?
• What musical events and/or musicians existed in time before the Beatles could happen, before Nirvana could happen?

The Challenge: Design

Google Maps Example:

• With Google Maps, the immediate interactive features explain themselves, and other features are integrated
• A Universal timeline should start with a no-brainer simplicity, but then integrate features with additional interfaces that are intended from the beginning of design:
• Offline, personal timeline app
• Office suite integration
• timeline apps with online accounts
• Social network integration

So Many Features!

• So Many Primary Views (YouTube is crowded enough, and these views present a much larger challenge to an incorporated design)
• Search
• Search Results
• Map
• Media
• Timeline
• Suggested
• Search Views
• Category Filters View
• joiners
• [and], [or], etc.
• Advanced Parameters
• Related Views for Connectedness
• Suggest User Timelines
• Related Wiki Timelines
• Other related media/links
• 
  

With so many features, the risk is high of getting bogged down and unconnected, un-alive (Google Plus, Google Wave) (Successes: YouTube, Facebook)

Combine: 

• Ease
• Accuracy
• Boundary Changes
• Education
• The GUI must morph from simple to detailed features
• Visually apt and Interactive
• Fluid
• Streamlined
• Engaging for all 

Feature Possibilities

• timeline file format
• personal timelines and maps
• category searches
• people
• places
• things
• ages of time
• inventions / tools
• philosophies / ideologies / movements
• professions
• geographic locations / areas
• map-based filters
• map animations (over time)
• boundary alterations on map, over time
• map animation playback
• graph plot animations (over time)
• custom parameters by search filters
• incredible ease of use
• real-time smart plotter (AI)

The Key: Dynamic Filter Overlap Creates Personal Experience

Discovery and addiction are the ulterior / (not so ulterior) motive of the GUI design, which is accomplished by user-centric filter overlap.

In some sense, the vision for such an application is in its ability to do things that neither, say, The History Channel nor Wikipedia really offer: continuous engagement with shifting attention to knowledge, as it relates to time.

Time is at the center of commonality between most any practical and useful knowledge. Even most philosophy and physics meta to time can be couched in terms of the history of their conception and discussion.

In its very most simplistic implementation, such an app would be a sandbox with multiple parameters, such as people, things, and places. This simplistic version would allow presets of such parameters, and show a timeline for a thing's history, in Virginia, or a history of thinkers as they relate to religion, but only from Germany.