The Continuation

Before I start coming up with some sketches, it is important to figure out what type of data will be in this application as well as how the data will correlate with each other.

My thought process will follow Ben Shneiderman‘s Visual Information Seeking Mantra of:

“Overview First, zoom and filter, then details-on-demand“.

In this post, I am going to brainstorm the types of data that I will be using and in future posts, take each section and break it down.

Calendar data – Time-based with various events/appointments generally falling into three type of categories:

• Time-specific – ex. Doc Appt
• All day – ex. Birthday
• Span/range – ex. Vacation

To-do lists or tasks -  Can or cannot be time based and can fall into two type of categories:

• Deadline
• Ongoing

Personal data – Data that you want to use for your own reference so that you can see patterns.  Some examples:

• Sick/Illness – ex. Flu in November and Sinus Infection in December
• Car maintenance
• Moods
• Food diary

Social data – Data from social sites. Some examples are:

• Blogs
• Photos
• Bookmarks

Other data – Data that doesn’t fall in the above categories, but I think it will be interesting to see how it meshes with the other data.  Examples:

• Weather
• News events
• Pop culture
• Historic events

The next post, I will do some deeper brainstorming into the Calendar data.

When I first came up with this idea for my Thesis, I originally wanted to come up with a way to visualize calendar data. Now, I want to do more.  I’ve been interested in the concept of lifestreaming for quite some time now as well as managing your personal information. Wouldn’t it be nice to see a graphical representation of when you were sick so you can see patterns?  For example, I always come down with a sinus infection every few months, but I’m not sure exactly when because I  don’t write it down.

My goal is to turn this calendar application to a personal diary/calendar/lifestreaming/personal information manager and using information visualization techniques and going beyond that.  Imagine my Capstone calendar demo + lifestreaming.

You are probably thinking I’m crazy and that it’s not possible.  Or who would use it. Well, this guy talked briefly about a calendar UI for lifestreaming.  Also, I am making this for me…cause I’m that kind of a person. 🙂

I will be posting some initial concept drawings soon.