Visualize History

For the past year and half, every time I’ve seen anything that could possibly relate to Visualize History, I’ve carefully noted it down.  I have now accumulated so many things that I think I need to share them with you.

GIS (Geographic Information Systems)

When I started working on the project, I did not have a clear idea about the distinction between what I was trying to build and a standard GIS system.  I worried that I was merely recreating something well established.  I no longer think that, but nonetheless have encountered several relevant GIS exhibits and projects. 

Two stuck out in my bookmarks.  I like the first, StatPlanet, because the UI is pretty intuitive.  You can explore some common indicators, like the AIDS epidemic or education training by country.  There is a time element, but it’s not easy to go between times.

The other GIS-related example that stuck out to me was WorldMapper, which skews a map so that each country reflects its relative size for a given indicator.  For example, in the world population map, China and India look large because of their dense population.

Specific Historical Examples

From the very beginning of my research I recognized that many specific examples of my project existed already.  That is, people had found great ways to visualize specific historical events.  At one time, I had a long, long list, which included the Peabody museum in New Haven, CT, but that list seems to be gone now.  I have found several since.

• Google shows where our oil comes from
• The New York Times presents an interactive timeline about Israel and the Gaza Strip (via)
• The Sunlight Foundation presents a history of transparency in the US government
• Google creates an exhibit on voting in the US since 1980

I found that the highly customized exhibits were compelling, but not easily applicable to other situations.  Some, like the Israel/Gaza timeline, were pretty general and yet maintained the necessary content and interface.

Genealogy

When I first dreamt of making Visualize History a real business, I thought that genealogy might be my ticket in.  People love exploring their family history, and many people will pay to do so.  Many sites have started to spring up, and I have even started seeing ads for genealogy sites on TV.  Clearly at least one company thinks regular old TV-watching people will pay to find out about their family history.  I still haven’t seen a great visualizer for genealogy, but I think we will very soon.

Timelines

For some reason, timelines have been around forever.  It could be because they are static, and can therefore be printed.  It could be that writing code that shows a timeline is pretty easy (since every operating system in the last 15 years has included a scrollbar, the key to the timeline).  I’m not sure why, but they’ve been around.  Still, I think recently people have decided to use them interactively, and on the web.

Of the two that stick out, timerime is closest to Visualize History, at least in purpose.  They have the exact Time Slider that I tried to build (and mostly succeeded at, by the way).  They even have a timeline for the Civil War, my canonical example.  I would certainly create a timeline on this site if I had an occasion to.

Capzles, the other timeline-type site, is less like Visualize History but still kind of cool.  They allow you to add media, which is mostly audio and pictures, to your timeline, and then play through it, exploring the media piece by piece.  Pretty cool.

Close, but no cigar

A few projects I came across actually gave me pause, since they resembled my goal fairly closely.  I already discussed the first such project, called Gapminder.  Hans Rosling presents data in a fantastic way, and recently I’ve started seeing a lot of people reference his work.  Google, which bought Gapminder, added the ability to create such maps with your own data, as Sasha Dichter explains.

The other project, another that I found early in my research, was produced at MIT.  The Exhibit part of the Simile project out of MIT takes a slightly different approach.  It is meant to be a widget that you put on your own website, using your own data.  They merely provide the interface.  It looks pretty cool, though it was different enough that I think Visualize History solves a slightly different and more complex problem.

So that’s my list.  There is one more big example that I hope to share with you soon, but it’s not quite ready for public viewing yet.  Soon.  But not yet.

No comments