BIA.studio has developed a fun, hands-on graphic visualization tool to promote clarity in complex decision-making situations. The relationships between a set of independent proposed projects and a field of commonly held desired outcomes is difficult to comprehend in a traditional x-y matrix display. The Outcome Tracker interactive solves this visualization problem by enabling users to see how individual actions are directly connected to relevant outcomes, and by revealing additional information when a topic is selected.
A demo of the interactive was developed for the Davis Action Group (DAG), in Davis Square Somerville, to display the community’s desired outcomes in relationship to the city’s proposed projects for Davis Square. Both outcomes and projects are grouped around a circle, organized into primary categories such as Infrastructure, Open Space, Program, Character and Development to make them easier find and compare. Selecting a project displays its primary and secondary connections to outcomes across the circle, as well as opening a popup window that summarizes the project (or outcome), with the ability to provide links to further information. The interactive gives DAG members and the Davis Square community a simple but effective tool for exploring how any proposed project may impact the community’s goals and desired outcomes.
The user interface programming for the Outcome Tracker Interactive prototype was developed for BIA by Jakov Kucan, Cambridge, MA.
