Interactive examples

Solid 3D graphic production throughout National Geographic’s "Mapping Memory in 3D" interactive

When I was researching this interactive to talk about in my blog, I promise that I did not intend for this to be about yet another UNC student. Low and behold, UNC graduate Stefan Estrada lands a gig at National Geographic, and wins over my attention with his interactive project, “Mapping Memory in 3D.” By looking at the credits and googling his name, I realize that he actually built one of the best 3D infographics for our Special Olympics project, the Leshan Giant Buddha. According to the credits for this project, it looks like he did the research, 3D graphics and interactive production. Props to him!

I like several things in particular about this interactive. For such a dense topic, he successfully presents it in a manner that makes sense to the common Joe. The copy is simple, yet educational, and relates easily to the user. For example, to learn about motions and sensations, it says, “As you move the mouse to navigate through this interactive, the sections of the cortex that handle touch, visual information, and body motion are working together to coordinate your movement.” Wow! That makes sense.

Second, the graphics and 3D are stellar. I definitely give UNC professor Alberto Cairo kudos for that. The simple animations in the preloader to the more extensive ones explaining memory and neurotransmitters are all well designed and executed. I enjoyed even the basic interactivity by rolling over the different parts of the brain and body to get more information. This is a perfect example how we can and should allow the user to explore the package to learn as much as they choose.

This interactive has an interesting navigation. At first glance, I noticed the top horizontal nav, and then immediately noticed a vertical nav (left). After exploring more, I realized that each “main” subject in the top horizontal nav contains it’s own “sub” vertical nav. However, even when you click on a subject in the vertical nav, you get even more content. Talk about depth!

I would suggest giving some type of rollOver effect to the sub nav (more than just revealing text) simply because if I wasn’t paying close attention it would have been easy to assume that this text was the extent of the information. Even a color change of the main header treatment (“Visual Information, Auditory Information, Motion and Sensation” etc) would have made me more inclined to click them.

Check out this interactive and let me know what you like and don’t like. Was the navigation confusing to you? What graphic did you like best?

Great job NGM!

Other posts that might interest you:

• AP “Bailout Tracker” visualizes data, but not effectively
• El Mundo plans ahead with launch of 2016 Olympics package
• Providing HTML and Flash versions of same site … worthwhile or waste of time?

© 27 August 2008 Innovative Interactivity (II).