Interactive examples

BBC’s “Dimensions” overlays geographic data of large-scale events on your region

This post is also available in: Spanish

Many times I struggle to comprehend the magnitude of an event, such as the flooding in Pakistan. News reports state that the flooding has affected one-fifth of the country – well, is that a lot or a little? In attempt to answer this question, Berg and BBC producers developed “Dimensions” to help users visualize the scale of major events. By overlaying the affected area in relation to my zip code, I can now see that the flooding stretches from Orlando, FL, to New York City, NY. Now that I can directly compare the size of the flooding to roughly U.S.’ east coast, I can say for certainty that flooding in one-fifth of Pakistan is a huge issue!

The prototype of the site is currently up for the next couple of months over at HowBigReally.com (cleverly named might I add). The producers noted that if the prototype is successful, it will be integrated within the BBC site as a complementary storytelling component for historical stories and coverage of large-scale events. Until then, data enthusiasts get to play with it and make recommendations for improvement.

They were especially excited about this idea because “it used the central premise of digital media – that of connection. Connecting by juxtaposing two datasets: Historical plans, events and routes with where you are,” Max Gadney wrote over at the BBC Internet Blog.

I was curious to learn more about the project so I followed a link to the blog of Berg, a London-based design consultancy that developed the prototype for BBC. Their write-up included a great “tour” of the site’s elements, as well we some more reasoning on why they think this project is particularly compelling.

Here is the original concept that they brainstormed a year ago:

“We want to bring home the human scale of events and places in history. The Apollo 11 Moon walk explored an area smaller than Trafalgar Square; the distance between your WW1 trench and the enemy could only be as much as from your front door to the street corner.

Dimensions is a feature on websites that juxtaposes the size of historical events with your home and neighbourhood. You’re hearing about the span of the base of the Great Pyramids, or the distance of the book depository from JFK, or the extent of the Great Fire of London… Dimensions overlays this map on a satellite view of where you live.”

I would encourage you to check out the site and provide helpful feedback to the developers so that this can be rolled out to BBC readers in the near future. Personally, my suggestion for improvement would be to alter the design so that the window to insert a zipcode doesn’t hide content within the map. I think moving the horizontal bar right below the map would be much more visually appealing for the user. Yet another suggestion would be to add more data, because I had so much fun seeing where the Apollo moonwalk would have happened in my neighborhood and how big the BP oil spill was had it occurred over land. This is a great example of technology providing the next generation of whitepages – Keep them coming!

Other posts that might interest you:

• WSJ visualizes Foursquare user activity in “A week on Foursquare”
• The Washington Post effectively visualizes casualties of the Civil War
• Multimedia must-see: OECD Better Life Initiative

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