[okfn-discuss] Alpha release of Where Does My Money Go? prototype

Thu Nov 12 18:25:38 UTC 2009

2009/11/12 Hjalmar Gislason <hjalli at hjalli.com>:
>> We're pleased to announce the alpha release of the 'Where Does My
>> Money Go?' prototype:
>>
>>  http://www.wheredoesmymoneygo.org/wdmmg-alpha/
>
> This looks great, especially for a prototype.
>
> A couple of quick comments:
> * One immediately misses more data to be able to dig deeper and explore more

Agree -- though this is largely a limitation of the data :)

> * I'm not thrilled with the "pie charts on regions" map, and actually
> think that you'll find such visualizations used as examples of bad
> infographic design in a lot of literature, even works of some of the
> new advisors :)

Point taken. Do you have any suggestions for better representations of
that data? (Or maybe we should just not do it at all).

> * As a user, once I've found something of interest I'd like to be able
> to export the raw data somehow to use in Excel, SPSS, for importing
> into a database, etc.

Right. All of the raw is available via: http://www.wheredoesmymoneygo.org/data/

But how that get integrates in is a another question. We're working on
backend "store" interface for the data but for the prototype we are
focusing (out of the necessity) on the visualization side of things.

> * There are a lot of opportunities to add tooltips with additional
> information (such as amounts, etc.) on mouse over.

What kind of information would you like added and where?

> Hope this is of help, and that you don't get me wrong - this is a great start!

Thanks, and this kind of feedback is great so thanks a lot for sending
it through Hjalmar.

Rufus