Timeline 2
Timeline 3: Map
Timeline 4
Timeline 5: Event Granulation
What is it that you want from a timeline?
. . . I'll tell you . . .Seeing Unexpected Relationships of Information
Timelines can be like friends that bring other friends together - perhaps unexpected friends. Timelines show groups of concurrent events together in singular moments.When you view any given time on a timeline, you should learn something about the reality of that given time. ie: such-and-such was going on while such-and-such was going on.
Every moment, we experience a reality ourselves, and we wonder what is going on during this moment - major world events, etc. When we imagine others in history, it is nice to imagine them in the context of the time they lived. In some way, we form pictures of momentary realities beyond what individuals could have known at any given time.
There should exist an adaptive timeline that allows users to piece together aspects of any given time's reality.
Personability
An adaptive timeline is not a history lesson that is fed to the user, but a method for discovery. What was a time like? ie:What might have been on the mind of Galileo other than science? You might want to know about culture, everyday objects, social unrest, and type of government effecting any person or animal in a time.
An adaptive timeline allows users to link events in history and time in away that nobody could plan ahead of time.
Static timelines fill one purpose for a very short moment, and then they are no longer interesting. They can usually only relate one or two concepts.
Map Filter: An Interactive World Map
If the timeline is paired with an adaptive map, the user can click on locations to only search history related to those locations. Because multiple filters can be chosen, and linked by 'or' or 'and', that can include multiple locations. (ie: If your memory is rusty on locations, the 'or' option is useful.)This means you can search by cities, countries, continents etc.
Because the map is graphically interactive, then simply using it as a filter feeds your knowledge and practice with geography. Users can specify whether they are filtering by City, State, Country, etc. Then the user graphically selects the region, using the map.
Scale
Another thing we want from timelines, albeit obvious, is relative perspective, contrast and proportion. We want to understand comparative spans of time! To some extent, this is what most timelines do well.However, scale is one area of design where things get tricky with so much data. Scaling features should exist, perhaps much in the same way Google Maps handles scale.
With adaptive scale comes design dilemmas about detail and importance of events. ie: How does one decide the proper scale at which to show a war, or a philosopher? The answer is frequently not in accordance with the time-span the events.
How do you form an axiomatic, Universal method to meaningfully show Wikipedia information in a single timeline? (This being the whole challenge of design.)
Scale can also be a problem, because you really want to compare billions of years to thousands, or even hundreds of years. . . . Why? . . . because that's what you should want to do with this application.
See Chronozoom.
