The whit team are entering the Victorian Government’s recently announced website application design competition, App My State. In short, the competition is designed to show how data released by the Victorian government can be presented in new and interesting ways, for the benefit of Victorians.

Normally our design process would be informed by interaction directly with the client. Although it is true that we do not have direct access to a client, we won’t be developing in the dark. The competition has some guidelines that provide some direction, while leaving plenty of room for creative interpretation.

Applications are primarily judged on the community benefit they provide, along with usability, design and innovation. The competition poses the question, how can an application present data in a way that makes Victoria a better place to live, work and raise a family. 

Planning

In looking at the data that has been made available by the government, and other similar services (like everyblock) it is apparent that data can be presented and grouped a number of ways, but that two meaningful presentations stand out:

• according to time; and
• according to location.

There are of course methods to group and present data, according to it’s category or data type for example. Our team thought about the number of “google maps” mash-ups that exist, a quick search will yield countless results of websites that have creatively combined a locational piece of information with a map. And decided to present information about festivals and other events according to the time of the event, on a dynamic timeline that can be customised by the user.

We hope to use the following series of posts as a way of documenting our journey in creating this application.