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I have moved to newlyancient.com and will be writing regularly there! Content on this domain is no longer updated, but will be maintained as an archive in its original form.

Tag Archive for 'charting'

Annual Report Design: Part 3: Workaholic

1 year, 7 months ago 4 Comments

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What better way is there to look back at the year than to see what you did? Thankfully, I track every task I do using a web-based solution. Not only does this provide me with helpful organization tools in the present, but it also allows me to look back and see what I am working on the most. Despite having all this data readily accessible, this is probably the least scientifically accurate of my charts. Still, if you would like to duplicate my effort, I invite you to do so.

Annual Report 2007: Tasks
  1. Track every task you complete using Hiveminder.
  2. For every task, add relevant tags. (Such as “English” for an English assignment)
  3. Go to this page to find a listing of every task you completed in 2007.
  4. Use clever counting techniques to count the number of tasks on that page.
  5. On the left side, you will see a tag cloud. Look for the biggest tags and click them.
  6. On the tag pages, again count the number of tasks and record them.
  7. Open up your favorite graphic design application.
  8. Draw a circle with a radius equal to the number of tasks tagged with your most common tag, multiplied by 3.
  9. Chose an appropriate color for the circle and bump the transparency down to 50%.
  10. Add a label to your circle.
  11. Repeat steps 8 through 10 for all of your top tags.
  12. Place your circles so that they overlap logically. Look at the tags shared by tasks and figure out where circles overlap.
  13. Embellish as needed, perhaps adding a count of your total number of tasks (which you found in step 4).

You should now be admiring a reasonably accurate picture of the work you did over the past year. Though it is not entirely scientific (particularly step 12), it should provide a good reflection upon where you are focusing your energy, and where you should focus more of it. For me, I realized I should be doing more writing outside of school as well as doing some more community work. It was also disheartening to see how much of my French work is reading rather than speaking. If you have any more questions, feel free to comment. I am also planning to extend this series with some basic color and design theory.

Download an archive of my design file.

This is part 3 of a series upon how I produced my annual report. Stay tuned for part 4.

Annual Report Design: Part 2: I read. I read.

1 year, 7 months ago 1 Comment

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First of all, I would like to apologize for not continuing this series last week. Unfortunately, my mother needed me and family always takes precedence.

What we read is incredibly influential in how we think. For that reason, I find it very helpful to keep track of exactly what I am reading and be ready to present where I gained knowledge upon any one subject. This is one of the primary reasons I love RSS—it allows me to have a centralized location for everything I read. For instance, I usually read the paper in a hard copy format. However, I still subscribe to the RSS feed so that I can mark items as read. That way, when I look back I can track all of my reading.

Annual Report 2007: RSS

Since I have all of my reading in a centralized location, lots of interesting possibilities can be found. Google Reader especially excels in this area, by coupling Google’s extensive search experience with savvy UI design. Trends are easily accessible and display a myriad of information upon the past year. What’s more, I can search everything I have read in RSS. Coupled with last.fm and Google Web History, I can effectively look up every article, song, or comic I have ever read or listened to. It’s like having the fastest detective and best statistician in the world on a commission, but free. Unfortunately, the presentation does have some flaws. As important as what I read is, I think this was the weakest chart in my report—it didn’t convey as much information as I would have liked it to. Still, if you would like to duplicate this imperfect attempt, by all means try and refine it.

  1. Sign up for Google Reader and put every RSS feed you can in. Anything you consume, whether it be through Twitter, print media, or elsewhere should be your feed reader to achieve effective results.
  2. Categorize your feeds with tags. Tag, tag, and tag some more. This step is crucial to figuring out trends in your reading.
  3. Every 30 days, visit the Google Reader Trends page and take a screenshot.
  4. At the end of the year, take a look at the data you have: how many items you read, percent of feeds you read, etc. See what information jumps out at you.
  5. Compile that information into a spreadsheet, using your monthly screen shots of the trends page as the source.
  6. Generate a graph of that information, using your spreadsheet application of choice. Do not have any labels or writing of any kind.
  7. Copy the generated graph into your graphic design program of choice.
  8. Add relevant labels and apply savvy design principles, particularly regarding color and typography.
  9. Embellish as needed with additional trinkets and clarifying information.

Hopefully, you should now be looking at an accurate picture of your consumption habits over the past year. There should be a healthy mix of what you read and how much if it you did. Throughout, you should consider your thesis (objective): what do you want your audience to gain? Chances are it isn’t that you do most of your reading at 6 am. Rather, in most cases you want them to gain an understanding of the perspective you are coming from—communicating your reading habits can be highly effective at this, but only if you do it the right way. When choosing information design, don’t be afraid to experiment, but always keep your objective in mind.

By presenting your reading habits visually, you can also gain a lot of insight for yourself. This can be used to change what you subscribe to, or when you read it. For instance, I tend to do most of my reading in the morning. Since my school start time is getting earlier, I know I will have to be waking up earlier to stay on top of my feeds. I also noticed I am a little top heavy with education and technology. Armed with this information, I am spicing things up with more humor, as well as injection of politics and design. Graphing your reading habits gives others an insight into who you are and gives you an insight into how to modify your consumption habits.

Download an archive of my design file.

This is part 2 of a series upon how I produced my annual report. Stay tuned for parts 3 and 4.

Annual Report Design: Part 1: See The Sound

1 year, 7 months ago 6 Comments

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As promised, I will be revealing the tricks I pulled out of a magic hat when designing my annual report. Thank god I'm not a magician: the magician’s alliance would always black ball me for revealing my tricks. Fortunately I am not and will be more than glad to tell you how I cooked up this scrumptious pie:

Annual Report 2007: Music

First and foremost, you need to decide if music really is a good indicator of your year. For me, there was no argument—I’m the guy who can’t go 5 feet without his trusty iPod (30 gig video, for those of you into that sort of thing). Since I listen to music more than I read, write, eat, or even sleep it is an absolutely critical measure of my life. Forget about psychoanalysis and interrogation—just take a look at what someone is listening to figure out what they are feeling and doing. Without further ado, here’s how I did just that—with style.

  1. Sign up for last.fm and ensure all of the music you listen to is scrobbled. New software allows music you listen to on your iPod to be scrobbled as well.
  2. Grab your data from your last.fm profile. I used the top 50 artists text feed. This can be found by going to your profile » charts » rolling year charts. Then, scroll down to the bottom and click feeds, then text. Or, just follow this handy dandy link, replacing YOURUSERNAMEHERE with your username, http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/1.0/user/YOURUSERNAMEHERE/topartists.txt?type=12month
  3. Save that text file onto your hard disk in an accessible location.
  4. Open Excel and import in the data from your text file. For your visual pleasure, I have created a screencast of doing so on my Mac.
  5. Optional: Pull the data into your spreadsheet program of choice. For me, that is Numbers. So, I just copied the data from Excel to Numbers.
  6. Add genre data for each artist. If you are unsure, look at the artist’s last.fm page for some common tags. Be sure to be consistent with your genre classification.
  7. Write a SUMIF formula a couple of columns over for each genre. In Numbers, that looks like this: =SUMIF(Artists :: Genre,"Classic Rock",Artists :: Plays). This will give you the total play count from a specific genre.
  8. Repeat step 7 for each genre.
  9. Create your charts, however you wish to do so. For me, a pie chart did the trick. For the most part, this is where you must use your best artistic judgement.
  10. Copy the graph into your graphic design program. For me, this was Fireworks.
  11. Add any embellishments you want. Perhaps a trinket or two.

Hopefully, you should now be looking at a stunningly beautiful graph of your listening habits over the last year. Personally, I’m not very good at following directions. Therefore, I’m releasing my text data, the Excel data sheet, and my Fireworks PNG for your interactive learning amusement. Have fun! If you’re confused about any step, feel free to ask in the comments and I’ll respond pronto. Also, please share your final slides so I (and other readers) can admire your handiwork. The first step is listening.

Download an archive of my example data and design files.

This is part 1 of a series upon how I produced my annual report. Stay tuned for parts 2, 3, and 4.