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Sep 27th 2009

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The business information design revolution: A Flash feature

Billions are poured into generating good quality business information. Almost nothing is spent on communicating it in effective ways. business21C.com.au is about changing that.

Below, we present a custom built interactive flash feature containing the information delivered by Professor Roy Green in his UTS Speaks lecture on Investing in Australia’s Knowledge Future earlier this year. It is designed to present the information in a non-linear fashion, with links to relevant external sources of information, and tags connecting related concepts within the lecture.

It is an experiment and work in progress, we invite your feedback in the comments section below.

Invest in Australia's Knowledge Future

Click to launch Flash feature

Over the next few months, we will be working with ideas and media such as this to determine whether there are opportunities for technologies such as these to be deployed alongside other media to communicate a large volumes of information in engaging and effective ways.

To that end, we’d like to request your feedback on questions such as:

  • How involving was the feature? Did you spend more time with it than you might have done on reading an article about the same subject?
  • Did you learn more or less than you might have done?
  • Did you find the flashy graphics added or detracted from the experience as a whole?
  • Did the graphics add to or detract from the learning process?
  • Were you stimulated to explore the ideas in the piece on the world wide web more than you might have been from a traditional article format?

Without fear or favour, please comment below.

You can also leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Comments

  1. Julian says:
    Sep 18th 2009 at 2:53 pm
    I think it's great that you are pushing the boundaries of information design, particularly in the university context, which has been a barren wasteland in terms of effective communication ideas. There were definitely features I liked about the Flash presentation - the ability to select graphics to blow up to full size if you were interested, and the links to cited materials were both very positive elements that I think add a lot to the experience. I also liked the interface you've created to scroll back or forwards through slides. I think visually you have done a very good job with a number of the elements, such as the tags. From a usability point of view, I think it works well As to the knowledge outcomes, my responses are a little more mixed. I suspect this format has very similar strengths and weaknesses to surfing on the web. I was able to dip in and out, focus on parts that were of more interest to me, while skipping less interesting bits. I felt like I got a general sense of the space the presentation was addressing and the overall thrust, but it was much harder to get a linear sense of a developing argument. I think it's a matter of finding the right balance between flexibility of engagement with the content and providing some sort of sense of the structure. What would help me a lot is some sort of coherent map of the overall conceptual structure, as opposed to a directory tree which breaks the content down into discrete topics, which is more what you provide. Anyway, congratulations on making the effort, and on the design quality of what you have put together.
    Reply
  2. B21Ceditor says:
    Sep 18th 2009 at 3:28 pm
    Thanks for your thoughtful response Julian. Your observations about the knowledge outcomes match well with our own. We're working on improving the piece, and will be releasing updated versions in the months to come, so we'll let you know when their up and solicit more feedback from you. Thanks for your time.
    Reply
  3. graemebowman says:
    Oct 1st 2009 at 9:40 pm
    Love the non-linear navigational possibilities, and the user-driven interactivity. It's very engaging and inviting. I've just tweeted about this, and hopefully some of those who claim to be digital gurus will visit and comment.
    Reply
  4. JoannaMaxwell says:
    Oct 29th 2009 at 9:53 pm
    I was entranced by the playful interface and the sense of being in a dynamic mindmap. I must confess to a small moment of panic that I might have missed something vital by following all my whims and maybe not being able to get back again! Altogether very refreshing, would love the technology to be freely (as in both readily and cheaply) available but I guess it isn't?
    Reply
    • B21Ceditor says:
      Nov 2nd 2009 at 7:33 am
      HI Joanna, That is indeed the idea. We're not there yet, but working towards it. Regards Mike Hanley
      Reply

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