The clever coders over at the Simile Project (MIT) have released a new tool called “Exhibit” for visualizing and enabling dynamic interaction with data. And it’s easier to use! Like their Timeline widget, which I used to time plot the references in my dissertation, you only need basic HTML skills and some data to look at and it is relatively easy to code something up. Simple examples and the required files to roll-your-own data visualziations are provided on their Simile Widgets website. Nice.

Urbanscreen, with their installation/projection in Hamburg’s Galerie der Gegenwart have pulled of a very nice example of the technology passively supporting the content - that is, the content stays main event. The effect they produce - an impressive, building-sized, animated trompe l’oeil does what it should do: it amazes passersby with the content and the effect. “How’d they do that?” is less a question - and that’s the way it should be. Anyone can tell it’s a projector; that’s irrelevant. And it’s not even interactive.

So many interaction designers miss this key point: it’s not about the technology. It’s about the experience. The problem with a great deal of contemporary “interactive” installation work is that people become fixated on the how, not the what, which misses the point entirely. People need to be focused on your message and not on how you made it happen.