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David Catalano

David Catalano

www.exemplum.com

Nathan Dicken

Nathan Dicken

www.exemplum.com

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. The Challenges of Visualizing Data
  3. Data Visualization Strategy: The Statistician Reporting Application
  4. User-Interface Design
  5. Guiding User-Interactions
  6. Capturing User-Appeal and Application Extensibility
Created:
1 July 2004
User Level:
Intermediate
Products:
Flash

Statistician Reporting Application: Data Visualization in Macromedia Flash MX 2004

When creating a Rich Internet Application (RIA), there are an incredible number of factors to consider. But one factor that should not be overlooked is the usability and presentation of data within the application. This article will discuss the advantages of using Flash for the creation of RIAs to visualize data, while making specific references to an RIA Exemplum created called the Statistician Reporting Application.

Exemplum is a Flash development firm specializing in product demonstrations for Sales Training, Customer Service, and Marketing. We do work primarily in the telecom, consumer electronics, and consumer goods industries. Click the image in Figure 1 to see a demo.

For many years, our clients have realized the benefits of Flash and our product demos but have always asked the question: “How can we prove our return on investment?” Last year we set out to answer this question by creating a suite of tools named Statistician that can be added to our product demos. Statistician is an analytics suite that performs Macromedia Flash tracking and reporting. Much like traditional website analytics, Statistician has the ability to monitor user behavior and actions within a Flash movie. The Flash movies we develop collect and send data to servers to be monitored by the Statistician reporting application, which also exports them to clients' third-party analytics suites, such as WebTrends or Hitbox. With this data, our clients can discover key features that potential customers are interested in or problems existing that customers face in learning how to use the product. Armed with this information, they can customize their messages and channel their support resources allowing them to realize the ROI from our work.

T-Mobile Blackberry 7230 Marketing Demo

Figure 1. T-Mobile Blackberry 7230 Marketing Demo. You must have pop-up blockers disabled to view the demo.

launchView Demo


We faced many challenges throughout the hundreds of development hours required to build Statistician. One of the biggest challenges was designing this tool to be able to visualize the enormous amounts of data. As thousands of events are captured, our clients needed a way to view this data in an aesthetically pleasing and informative manner, to really capture the value of the ROI that Statistician provides. This article will discuss our solutions to challenges we faced when designing for data visualization in the reporting application and will also provide you with useful information when creating a complex application to visualize data.

Requirements

To view Statistician you will need to install the following software and files:

Macromedia Flash Player 7


Level of Experience Required: Beginner through Advanced

The intended audience for this article includes any level of developer or designer (beginner through advanced) interested in creating Flash applications to visualize data. Readers should already be familiar with Macromedia Flash and should have some working knowledge of user experience and usability as it relates to design.

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About the authors

David is a founding member and the President of Exemplum, which specializes in creating Flash product demonstrations with the single goal of creating positive returns on investment for each and every client project. Although not a Flash developer by trade, he has the ability to switch to Expert Mode in the actionscript panel and "get it done." David spends his time outside the office with his family and friends. He spends his idle time on a wide range of leisurely pursuits including reading, hiking, aquascaping, and games of chance.
Nathan is a Senior New Media Developer at Exemplum, where he designs and develops interactive Flash-based product demos and applications. Prior to working at Exemplum he has worked as an interactive game developer at Boxerjam Productions and also as a web developer at Fusionary Media. At Exemplum, he has designed and developed projects for clients such as T-Mobile, Sharp, and Olympus. Even though he loves interface design and developing in Flash, when not working on the computer he enjoys spending time with his family, mountain biking, and getting outdoors as far away from a computer as he can.