History Flow
January 2nd, 2007
Earlier this week I was directed to the newly evolving Wikipedia entry covering the execution of Saddam Hussein. I opened the history log for the article and was immediately fascinated by the flurry of editing activity that was going on. While admiring this living document and contemplating the pattern of entries, I remembered a project by IBM called History Flow that would be ideal for visualising this kind of information.
History flow works by tracking the contributions made by a group of authors to a document as a thin, colour segmented line, with each colour relating to a particular author. A new line is created for each revision made to the document. Version differences and author activity over time are revealed once the version lines are all stacked together, giving an artistic yet practical view of a document’s edit history at a glance. The project web site has a more detailed explanation on how it works.
The Wikipedia history log for Saddam’s execution would probably suggest a thinly sliced History Flow with multiple bands of colour - similar in presentation to this one:
