I’ve worked in digital since 2005, and have covered a lot of ground. In recent years most of my work has involved building interactive data visualisations and code-heavy web-apps, but in the more distant past I’ve also worked on standard front-end projects, physical installations on giant screens, HTML5 games and mobile apps.
Here’s a selection of my most recent projects:
VizSweet
Client: Information is Beautiful
VizSweet by Information is Beautiful is a high-end data visualisation creation tool — think PhotoShop for data viz. As Technical Director, I led a small team of designers and developers to turn VizSweet from a pencil sketch into a fully functional web-app that’s created visualisations with tens of millions of views.
VizSweet is packed with advanced features that we scoped, wireframed and built: data-parsing and type recognition, drag-and-drop UI with deep styling options, a dynamic editing interface for each visualisation format, custom typesetting for labels across all shapes and sizes of data, customisable search and filtering widgets, and many more.
I also worked as Principal Developer on most of VizSweet’s visualisations — complex sub-apps in their own right that turn data into visual formats. Each visualisation is a project in itself, involving months of work and presenting unique challenges; some need to handle large amounts of data, others render flexible scales or labels, and others use complex layout algorithms to arrange data for any screen size.
The visualisations are built on a core of TypeScript, React and Redux, but from there modules diverge into Canvas, SVG or WebGL rendering, using a range of libraries like D3 for layouts and Jest and Playwright for testing.
VizSweet — Tree Mappa
Tree Mappa is one of VizSweet’s visualisation modules — a rich sub-app within VizSweet that creates and renders tree-maps, a block-based format that’s good for displaying hierarchical data.
Some highlights include a custom layout algorithm for optimised human-readability, rich text editing, a powerful labelling system that wraps and resizes labels and fully editable, styleable UI and hierarchy parsing to handle nested data.
Here’s a small sample of the different visualisations that have been created with Tree Mappa:
VizSweet — Balloon Race
Balloon Race is a physics-based visualisation format, driven by a combination of D3’s Force Layouts and custom code. It displays data in a dynamic, fun way with customisable intro animations and nice little pops of interaction.
As with Tree Mappa, it features a huge range of deep customisation options from bubble scaling to colour palettes and axis styling.
Here’s a few of the different visualisations that have been created with Balloon Race:
VizSweet — Scatter Plot
Scatter Plot is another VizSweet visualisation, this time displaying data across two axes. It uses a combination of Three to handle large amounts using WebGL rendering and SVG to render the lines and text of the scales.
The scales in these visualisations hide a huge amount of work — they’re flexible enough to handle string, numeric or categorical data across any range, can be positioned anywhere and have endless styling possiblities.
[NDA] Public Data Project
Client: Numiko & [NDA]
Numiko were approached by a public body with years of public interest data locked away in spreadsheets. They wanted to open up the data, turning it into something accessible and useful.
I worked with Numiko to plan and develop the web-app, offering UX consultancy to plan the visualisations and wireframe the app, followed by development to actually build the thing. The app allows users to quickly sort and filter data, and includes some nifty “query building” UI that lets people easily narrow down the large data set.
The project is powered by React and Redux, and uses GSAP to provide smooth transitions between states and pages.
[NDA] Real-Time Data Project
Client: Beyond Words & [NDA]
Beyond Words were approached by a global financial client who wanted to turn their firehose of data into a real-time visualisation.
I worked on the build with a team of designers and developers, using React and D3 to create a series of visualisations that updated in real-time, smoothly incorporating the latest values with dynamic animations.
The Internet of Things
Client: Information is Beautiful & SAP
This small interactive piece is a primer on the Internet of Things — the connected network of gadgets, gizmos and widgets that’s taking over the world.
I developed the project using a combination of SVG animations and interactive, physics-driven data visualisations that combine D3 and Canvas.
User-Centred Design, UX & IA
I worked in UX for several years and did everything from user research to information architecture to wireframes — here are a few examples:
Street Summer
Client: Numiko & Channel 4
An innovative crowd-sourced YouTube-powered beatbox orchestra.
Stand Up 2 Cancer
Client: Numiko & Channel 4
Planned and wireframed the site for SU2C’s live telethon.
KS2 Art & Geography
Client: Numiko & The BBC
Researched, planned, and wireframed the BBC’s Keystage 2 Art and Geography sites.