Capstone — Week 10
A Physical Visualization Exploration
Let’s recap on “Week 10.” Spring Break was over, and it was time to get back to business. It was the return to work with a few weeks remaining before the final presentation.
At the midterm mark and after creating the initial physical heatmap prototype, there were improvements I wanted to make for the next iterations, such as creating depth in form, improving the data language, finding the color palette and giving purpose and appeal to the empty space.
And now it was time to play a bit with materials and technique as well, just random play with no pressure (well I felt pressure, but let’s pretend). And unfortunately, with the time crunch, I did not feel I had the space to experiment as much as I would have liked. But there were a few twists and turns, literally.
The Pivot
Back in “Week 5,” I included sketches and thoughts of alternatives to the heatmap physical visualization. The ideation for the design sketches was a play on an abacus, meditation prayer beads and even the game “Connect 4,” alternative forms and ways of tracking. I was playing with the idea of a design kit that practitioners could use to make their own mappings to track their practice. One sketch was the simple use of knots or small objects clipped on string or yarn to track a practice.
Since then, I created a language and hierarchy for those knots. The placement and grouping of the knots tell a story of when a yoga practice took place and what took place.
“As early as 1500 CE, the Incans were using knotted cords, called khipus, as a form of data visualization…” “…to communicate extraordinarily complex mathematical and narrative information.”
In this prototype, the first knot represents a yoga practice on the mat has taken place. The next group of knots represents the time of day, and the third group of knots represents the duration of the practice. The photos include strands about two feet long. In other prototype attempts, I added additional groups of knots to include more data, but the strands of yarn were running short.
I also started playing with combining a second color as a visual marker either to split time (such as groupings by weeks) or potentially to add more data. And I found that the process of the knotting was quite meditative which seems a good fit for a yoga practitioner who likes to work with their hands.
I also envision this can take the form of an installation or alternatively a smaller 3D piece. I see a box as a yearly calendar. Columns of strands can represent days and months in a year. Knots can take different forms to represent different data, color can come into play as well. I can see this developing well over time.
What’s next
From here, it’s time to check back with my peer group and share the progress to get more feedback to refine the design. More to come next week…
