Interface Digital Labs

Interactive World Cup wallcharts

The recent World Cup in South Africa inspired some great digital versions of the old classic, the World Cup Wallchart. Here are three of the best:

1. Marca

The first, by Spanish sports newspaper Marca, offers a elliptical arrangement of matches, dates, group tables, teams and venues, and displays the related information in the middle. It’s a great way to capture at a glance how the matches played out across South Africa and throughout the month.

2. Think Positive

The next one, Think Positive, by Bristol-based interactive agency Positive, is simpler, and uses a radial device with all the matches in sequence. This can be spun to navigate to a particular match. It’s very well executed, a great piece of information design. From a UX point of view it shows the influence of the iPhone in the way content is navigated.

3. BBC World Cup 2010 Team Tracker

Thirdly, and definitely my favourite, is the BBC World Cup 2010 Team Tracker.

This application has two modes – as a predictor or a results tracker. In the build up to the World Cup (or afterwards if you wish to plot alternative histories), you can predict the result of matches, and see the progression of teams through the tournament. But rather than a boring series of lines, each country, represented by a two coloured ribbon that twists, turns and grows as that team moves through the rounds. You can save your predictions out and share them via Twitter and Facebook etc.

The Tracker element of the application works in a similar way but tracks the actual unfolding of events in South Africa. Zooming in and out, it gives you all the information, but is also an animated piece of art, an experience, joyous composition celebrating the World Cup.

You can also select a particular team and follow their journey through the tournament, with stop-offs for links to significant moments and highlights from games – the jumping off point for a multimedia experience.

Technically, it’s a tour de force, created in Flash, and shows that while many people have written Flash off, I really can’t think of a better tool to create something like this. But it is not just a technical application, it is a beautifully designed and carefully constructed piece of interactive art. It doesn’t aim to be like a printed wallchart, or a dry exercise in information architecture, but an engaging, enjoyable experience as well.

Printed poster

Lastly, I should mention the beautiful printed World Cup poster created by New York design studio Hyperakt. Using a radial bracket design, each round of matches moves closer to the middle, so at the centre is the final between Spain the the Netherlands, with the triumphant Spaniards occupying the bullseye. You can pledge money via Kickstarter to receive a copy of this poster.

Hyperakt have also created a poster showing all the World Cups to date in a similar format, but presented linearly.

Finally, interactive World Cup trackers don’t get better than this “soccermeter” (approx 1.10 in).