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2007 Reviewed
By Tom Woodward | January 6, 2008
I took Dan’s challenge to explore my 2007 via design. The whole thing really intrigued me. I was amazed by how little I track what I do and, often, how little access I could get to my own data (which I know the companies are tracking).
I really wanted better stats once I got going. My goal this year is to keep track of lots of things so 2008′s year in review reaches the next level in data density. I’m also going to work on refining the rss feeds which are out of control and on three different platforms. It also appears I write at least four unpublished posts for everyone one I post. Must stop doing that. So Dan has made me a better man.
Things I wanted stats on that I didn’t have-
- Music- four computers and multiple iPods led to no decent stats (and my family has taken over our home computer so those stats would just be embarrassing. Not sure how to fix that. I’m trying LastFM but I don’t think that’ll take the iPod into account which is about 85% of my listening.
- Exercise- lbs lifted, avg heartbeat, reps, sets etc. I can do this. I might even do something on a regular basis through the year as an incentive.
- Food- It’d be really interesting to see the stats of food I’ve eaten total calories, fat, protein etc. I’m not sure I’ll ever be disciplined enough to keep track of all of that.
- flickr and del.icio.us both suck in terms of stats (yes I’ve turned on stats in flickr) but they really don’t let you see what you’ve done very well. I know they’re tracking me that way. I want that data.
- Sleep- I want to know how much I’m sleeping and how little I can get away with w/o becoming both stupid and mean. Time to log it.
Anyway, I’m not sure I met the contest rules of four informative graphics (depends on how picky Dan and his judges want to be) but it was really interesting either way. Thanks Dan!
Here’s my design. While certainly not being dense in information, I do like the look of it.
In the interest of seeing how much things improved here was my initial design- which I now hate. I think it’s b/c of the flick logo colors. That was a mistake. I do kind of like the house idea but it’d take some serious effort to pull it off properly.
Topics: Creative Communication, Data Visualization, Design, Examples | 7 Comments »
January 7th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Which iPod do you have? Last.fm is suppose to be able to track it too if you have iTunes sync it for you instead of manually syncing. http://www.last.fm/help/faq/ (Scroll down to iPod)
If your using a touch or an iPhone I’d suggest MobileScrobbler (http://dev.c99.org/MobileScrobbler/). I use it on my touch. It updates last.fm when you connect to it through wifi. Also, you can listen to last.fm with it, and while listening to your songs and running it, it gives you a ton of information about the artist and song.
I don’t feel like I could find enough information about myself to do this challenge. Maybe next year (I just started using last.fm this week). I do like the design you went with. The bar graphs are neat.
January 7th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
[...] and Tom Woodward: [...]
January 7th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
J.D.
I’ve got an older shuffle (2nd gen), a non video nano, an ipod touch. They rotate depending on activities and content. I didn’t realize lastfm could do that. I’m new to the service. Thanks!
I’ll check out the mobilescrobbler. I learn something new every day.
Tom
January 8th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
I love your graphic. Did you use Photoshop?
January 9th, 2008 at 7:23 am
Nancy-
Thanks. I thought it was kind of fun although the info is weaker than I’d like.
It was done partially in Photoshop and partially in Omnigraffle (Mac only). I originally drew the faces with the open mouths on paper (when my computer was temporarily dead) and I liked them so I scanned them in and traced them using Photoshop’s pen tool. The rest was done in Omnigraffle with a little help from Numbers to get the scale of the bar graphs right. I’d make the graphs in numbers and then pull them into Omnigraffle and trace them there.
Probably more than you wanted to know . . .
Tom
January 10th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
[...] addition to sturdy entries by Alice Mercer and Tom Woodward, we now [...]
January 14th, 2008 at 4:04 am
[...] made me think – some parts I think turned out OK and other parts I know are as dodgy as can be. Tom Woodward I was amazed by how little I track what I do and, often, how little access I could get to my own [...]