Gapminder

Gapminder 2006 is a well-designed, informative and engaging tool for getting statistics and information about our world. The information is so fluid and the graphs can lead to comparitive statistics in any number of ways. The floating chunks of information can be seen as a chart or a map, based on the year. The dots symbolise countries and their relative populations and are color coded for continents. On the side is a list of countries that can be rolled over to highlight one in particular amongst the floating dots, if there is information available for that year.

This is a great example of great design for a good cause and makes it so easy to derive social/cultural/economic data in an extremely simple, approachable and coherent manner. I am quite guilty of not being very up to date with my world, partly because I spend so much time looking at pretty things. But this serves me just right. Has this been around a while?



"Gapminder is a non-profit venture for development and provision of free software that visualise human development. This is done in collaboration with universities, UN organisations, public agencies and non-governmental organisations. "