I led a short research project to review the state of the art, producing an expert-reviewed primer to explain both the fundamentals of the technology and when it might be ready to use.
Need
I identified three separate user groups for the output, with different needs: senior decision-makers, who needed to know headlines; detail-oriented non-specialists, who needed basic knowledge and a framework for understanding more technical material; and curiosity-led readers, who needed an engaging and informative read.
Solution
The dynamic complexity of the topic and the diversity of user needs lent itself to an interactive format, where users could easily skip irrelevant sections and could engage with the content. Although, in the context, it had not been attempted before, I proposed and developed a one-page website format, coded largely from scratch in HTML/CSS.
Owing to the constraints of the system within which the report was to be presented, it was also necessary to develop custom, lightweight code for several functions, including a lightbox for images, an automatic method to show reference footnotes, and an implementation of the ‘Boids’ algorithm which was then adapted to demonstrate different architectures. This involved use of Javascript, D3, and Processing.
Recognising that first impressions are important, especially when a user may be engaging with a new format, I implemented scroll-linked animation for the cover image of the webpage using frames from a video of a starling murmuration, one of the frequently-cited examples of swarm behaviour in nature.
