seamonkeyrodeo

karaoke mind control

Sidebar

Context

  • About
  • Popular

Archives

  • October 2015
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • July 2014
  • March 2014
  • January 2014
  • November 2013
  • March 2013
  • January 2013
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • May 2012
  • December 2011
  • September 2011
  • July 2011
  • April 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • February 2010
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • July 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • March 2006
  • February 2006
  • January 2006
  • December 2005
  • November 2005
  • October 2005
  • September 2005
  • August 2005
  • July 2005
  • June 2005
  • May 2005
  • April 2005
  • March 2005
  • February 2005
  • January 2005
  • December 2004
  • November 2004
  • October 2004
  • September 2004
  • August 2004
  • July 2004
  • June 2004

Data, Information, Medium, Message

Standard

Being a Small Post on a Large Topic

What you put in your Web app dashboard is different from what you put in your emails, and different from what you put in your SMS messages or mobile app dashboard, and rightly so; if McLuhan had his act at all together, we can be confident that even if you try to make one size fit all you’ll fail. Probably miserably.

But that doesn’t mean that the lessons learned in one medium can’t be applied to another. Our example for the day is a service that I love: Songkick, the folks responsible for an ever-increasing percentage of my discretionary incoming going to live music.

Songkick allows you to track both upcoming gigs by performers that you already listen to and gigs that other Songkick users will be going to; this is great, as it simplifies the process of discovering new music (as human beings are still the best music recommendation mechanism out there), but it leads to a problem for the service.

Right now on Songkick I’m tracking 500+ performers, half a dozen venues, and ten other people, so everything associated with those performers, venues, and people is a part of my Songkick “tracker.”  That means that my tracker includes people going to gigs around the world in addition to the shows happening in my own back yard. The image below is a part of one of Songkick’s email notifications, and there’s a problem hiding there:

Songkick Tracker Email

Songkick Tracker Email

Quick, which of those shows is happening in the New York and which in London? Yeah, I had a hard time figuring it out, too. All of the data is available, but it hasn’t been transformed into easily actionable information.

What’s really interesting, though, is that this is a problem that Songkick has already solved—just in a different medium. Take a look a the Web version of the tracker dashboard, which offers a superset of the information in the email:

Songkick Tracker Dashboard

Songkick Tracker Dashboard

The difference is clear: while the data being displayed is functionally identical, the SK crew saw that they needed to visually distinguish between the different classes of data they were displaying when they were thinking about dashboard design for a Web site: the color coding makes it relatively simple to scan through the data and pull out what you’re interested in…data transformed into information. Because email is a different medium, however, the lesson learned on the Web wasn’t carried through to the emails that contain virtually the same data set.

It’s a relatively minor complaint, but the underlying issue is well worth considering: think about the impact of the medium on your message, but don’t forget that some of what you learn can apply across the board.

  • Date July 28, 2009
  • Author Whitney McNamara
  • Comments 2 Comments

Post navigation

User Inactivity: One Reason and Another
The Twitter That Was
Proudly powered by WordPress
Theme: Writr by WordPress.com.