Alright so here is the objective:
âProduce a persuasive interactive information graphic for a touch screen.â
 While communicating a message to the user with the simplest form possible.
So the first and most logical place to start is finding a topic of information to illustrate. I choose a few topics of interest: Operating system usage, Internet usage, education, console sales and population growth. I ended up going with education in Australia. Statistics about attendance and completion of year 12 are topics I could use.
Time to gather the stats on education in Australia.
The headings Iâm going to use are: Students enrolled, school count, population who completed an education.
http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber.nsf/LookupAttach/4102.0Publication25.03.111/$File/41020_ASTMar2011.pdf
http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/4EF49EB9552322F4CA2576F500120083/$File/62780_2009.pdf
http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/E75F10B762B24193CA25748E00129FCA/$File/41020_2008_10.pdf
http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/51EE403E951E7FDACA25732F001CAC21/$File/41020_2007.pdf
http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/178044E4F02B2490CA2571B0001A6078/$File/41020_2006.pdf
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/DetailsPage/6227.0May%202010?OpenDocument
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/Lookup/1312.3Main+Features2Jan+2011#Education
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/ProductsbyTopic/02E69097ADCB6A79CA25730F00198CDD?OpenDocument
http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/1DE1CF6BBB83B252CA25740E00799D92/$File/20303_2006.pdf
All the information came from the ABS on education.
Right so into the good stuff the interface my favourite part.
Once again Iâm working off a similar style guide to the Metro UI.
I looked at other Information designs as well to try and get a feel for the interface I wanted.
http://www.behance.net/gallery/Design-Can-Change/220632
http://www.behance.net/gallery/DHNN-Computer-Arts-infographics/954149
http://www.behance.net/gallery/Chili-Infographic/957906
http://www.behance.net/gallery/Information-Overload/356751
http://www.behance.net/gallery/Urban-Infographics/503448
http://www.behance.net/gallery/Progress/484984
http://creattica.com/infographics/universal-information-graphic-elements/61140
Right so simple shapes and Icons was the feel  I was going for.
Here is a quick sketch up of the UI I came up with.
 And here is it mocked up in photoshop. As you can see it follows the metro style guide with easy to read statistics and large typography.
Very simple yet it gets the message across. Information is the key part of design with no fancy graphics or cheesy cartoons. Itâs designed to be simple to get the message across. Thatâs the point of this UI style guide.
So the main point of this assessment is to make it interactive. So I got out my Windows Phone 7 to take a look at how users interact with information. For this design I decided that each of the buttons would have interactive elements too show the use they are on them. Also following the panorama pivot of the metro ui I have a part of the information hidden to the side so users need to swipe to the side to reveal more information which allows for large graphics and more information to be present at the front. The elements would have slight animations between switching between the different pages as well. Possibly even having the infographics animated to help bring immersion. Not being a strong coder I didnât want anything too fancy,
As you can see I had to take a few of my elements out cause I just couldnât get the code to work.
Upon opening the file users are taken to the home page where they then select the page of info they want to look at. They can select from the attendance page which takes them to the stats on how many males and females had regular attendance and how many were enrolled in an education centre in 2010.
The second page is a list of how many schools are in Australia. Itâs broken up into state and private schools with an interactive list of the states.
The third page is a graph of what percentage of what type of education level males and females received over the last 4 years. Â The user can use the time slider to get different results.
Ok so not being a strong coder I was really hindered by what I could produce (Although props to Mark Rienecker for his help.) I couldnât get the pivot with drag elements to work so I ended up just making the canvas larger. I wanted to make the state buttons radio buttons that changed their values, however after customising the radio buttons I couldn't get them to output to the right place with the two different sets of information so I had to go back to timeline buttons.
I would have liked to customise the slider bar as well but attempts where meet with angry elements not working and coding a new one from nothing as out of my league. On the coding side I was in deep water as I knew how to code AS2 but 3 was just too much. On the design side I think the only thing I could have done more is add more information. Iâd like to see this on an actual touch screen with all the interactive elements fully fleshed out too see how well it works.
Well thatâs it Thanks for the chance to let me learn Dave.