Data to Design

I've been collaborating with Karon Bielenda. Karon started collecting data from Google plus on the posts that she has shared as part of the Connected Learning MOOC. She shared the spreadsheet with me and we started playing and discussing options to use this data in different ways. 


The raw data looked something like this:
Post XXX
Person A made a comment
Person B liked it
Person C liked it and made a comment
Person D reshared the post
By playing with all the Excel chart formats, I created this radial design.  This only includes 4 numbers and does not include the people side of it (that gets more messy!). On reflection I thought that this looked like a leaf or petal of a flower.

The next step was to take a screen capture of the Excel chart. I moved it into Baazart app on my ipad. I could then 'cut out' and copy the petal, duplicate it and add the background. It seems like wallpaper to me plus it would make a great postcard to send out.

Like the zeros that sit at the centre, these mini projects are like germinating seeds for ideas. I've taken this idea and applied it to a weekend hackathon and created a wallpaper design from open data!

I've just discovered that Australia Post has a print-and-send postcard service through an App! It is only marginally more expensive that sending your own postcard. I'm thinking that will be a good option for my next round of CLMOOC postcards that I send over the waters in various directions.




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