IID — Timeline

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Part 1: The Brief

Our brief was to create a graphical timeline that could be created for and from anything we chose to do. This brief is an individual assignment which we would be completing as part of our Information Visualisation and Typography unit.

I decided I would explore Facebook for my timeline. I chose Facebook because I have an interest in the Social Media company that’s led by Mark Zuckerberg. The interest lies deeply with my desire for gaining knowledge on millennial entrepreneurs and Mark happens to be one of the most accomplished.

Picture of Facebook’s sign up page

Part 2: Research

To narrow my idea down I worked on figuring out what it is that most attracts me to Facebook. I then came across an article about their acquisition history. Following on from there I used the following sites to gather information about their history with acquiring companies and why they acquire these companies. I found out information using Wikipedia’s page on the company’s acquisition history and to dig deeper I used various sources to find the content. Some of the sources were not the 100% valid in most cases for the sites that didn’t have an official purchase price on the wikipedia page.

List of mergers and acquisitions by Facebook - Wikipedia

Part 3: Presentation

I presented my research findings to the class on Facebook’s brief acquistion history. Giving an insight to what Facebook is, who owns it, who are their noteable company acquisitions.

Presentation link: http://shuffz.co/zai/UAL/facebook/fbAcquisitionHistory

Part 4: Prototyping

During a discussion I had with Tobias led to me playing with the following ideas for picking a design for the timeline. After realising it would be likely to end up experiencing problems with the timeline’s acquisitions appearance. Instead I moved on from the more free flowing timeline towards a more structured timeline that wouldn’t have left much room to confuse the viewer.

Part 5: Crit

During my crit I presented the research that I used and the story behind wanting to work on Facebook’s company acquisition history to tell them a little bit more about the products they most likely use.

I wanted a little bit more time to develop a second timeline which displays the companies that didn’t have a price tag for their sale and how long Facebook use(d) their services.