[Sigia-l] Timeline

[Eric Reiss]

We’ve been exposed to a lot of different timelines the past few days,
but I’m surprised that no one has talked about the overall goals of
the timeline – internal and external. Or maybe I missed something...

Anyway, it seems to me that in generic terms, timelines do at least
one of two things:

*   explain an historical progression

*   put isolated incidents into a common framework

I think truly useful timelines do both – it’s usually a matter of
choice of content. Ideally, the reason for including a particular
event in a timeline should be intuitively obvious to readers in that
the individual event:

*   is obviously important (Fleming discovers penicillin)

*   is relevant to the subject of the specific timeline (music, art,
politics, history of flight, etc.)

and/or

*   is so well-recognized that it helps put more obscure events in
proper historical perspective (Perugino paints Crucifixion with
Saints, Columbus discovers America)

Most corporate websites use timelines to brag about their past
achievements. The ultimate low-tech version of this is the simple
list of milestones, which is a pretty standard trust-building tool.
Personally, I enjoyed the Wrigley timeline, which was simple,
straightforward and nicely illustrated.

Museums, too, like to brag. In this case, it’s usually about their
holdings. Unfortunately, many museums use the timeline as a
convenient collection of dated shoeboxes in which they can throw
whatever content they happen to have lying around. The History
Channel timeline struck me as one of these.

I would assume that most users of museum-type timelines want to
either gain a general overview of a subject, are researching
something specific, or are just looking for entertainment. I’m not
convinced dated shoeboxes meet their needs.

EMP seems to be aiming at the entertainment segment. However, I found
the EMP site terribly confusing. The screen sometimes did unexpected
things and despite the sexy expanding/contracting timeline, I never
really got a sense of broader historical perspective. I got bored.
Quite frankly, I though the app tried to do too much and the
interface was way too complicated.

In short, I think timeline builders would do well to reexamine their
reasons for creating such a beast and why people would want to use
it. As always, form without carefully processed content is a waste of
everyone’s time.

Best regards,
Eric Reiss

www.e-reiss.com
copenhagen, denmark