[wdmmg-discuss] Musings on the dashboard etc.

Mon Jun 14 10:14:44 UTC 2010

This is mostly just a collection of notes I've been keeping whilst
browsing the dashboard not particularly seriously.

In general the Web UI is much richer than I realise.  I keep being
surprised at the new things I discover it can show.  And it is
awesome!

Bubble charts.  On the UK Wide view the key at the top right shows the
bubbles, it would be nice if you could click on a bubble and the view
would change to go there.

In fact, this "click on the key" works in the National view, or almost
does.  You can click on the radio buttons, but not the bubbles
themselves.  Which brings me too...

I was surprised that the National view can display one of the union
members (England/Scotland/Wales/NI) and also the UK total.  It was the
"UK total" that surprised me.  The highlighting doesn't make it clear
that that's what is being displayed.  That means the National view can
display the same things as the UK Wide view, at least for bubble
charts.

Isle of Man / Republic of Ireland.  In the map of the National view I
see that the crown dependency of the Isle Of Man is shown, but this is
not part of the UK.  The Republic of Ireland (also not part of the UK)
is not shown.  For geographic sense it would be a good idea to show
the bits of the Northwest European Archipelago (as wikipedia calls
it!) that are present, but not part of the UK.  So that's the Republic
of Ireland and the Isle of Man.  The channel islands (also a crown
dependency) are not shown, and I think that's okay.  Basically, what's
so special about the Isle of Man?

For what it's worth, the first time I saw it, the fact that the island
of Ireland wasn't completely drawn in confused me briefly.

It took me ages to realise I could slide the slider and change the year.  durr.

drj