Datavisualization.ch Selected Tools is a collection of tools that we, the people behind Datavisualization.ch, work with on a daily basis and recommend warmly. This is not a list of everything out there, but instead a thoughtfully curated selection of our favourite tools that will make your life easier creating meaningful and beautiful data visualizations.

Created by Nicholas Feltron and Ryan Case, Daytum for iPhone is complementary application for Daytum web app to track your daily activities. iPhone app allows you to add, edit and view entries to help collect and communicate the most important stats in your world.

Daytum was originally conceived by Ryan Case and Nicholas Felton as an elegant and intuitive tool for counting and communicating personal statistics, inspired by Nicholas Felton’s “Annual Reports” which he has been making since 2005.

The iPhone app adopts the beautiful and familiar cyan and grey palette offering all the features you’d expect for inputting and tracking data on the go. Within the app, the entries page features an entry field and a list of recent entries. Tapping an item name or entry amount will link to their detail views. By swiping across an entry, you can quickly choose to re-add that item and amount at the current time, or choose to edit or delete the entry. The main item and category views are scrollable lists. Tap the button at the top of the page to add a new item or category. Click on an item or category to visit its detailed view, or swipe to quickly reveal edit and delete options. Not only can you add data quickly but also the app allows you to visualise the same data in beautiful graphs. Selecting an item or category from the list view loads the graph view. Dragging the handles below the graph allows for the default 2 week range to be adjusted. Drag over the graph to see the entry total for a specific day. In addition there is favourites view, a place to keep frequently referenced graphs. Save an item or category here by pressing the star icon on a graph. When it’s blue, the graph has been saved to your favourites.

As it can be expected, Nicholas and Ryan have done a wonderful job with the app. Although utilising in a lot of instances standard UIKit elements, there are tweeks and quirky elements that give the app unique feel. Some may miss the minimal feel of the web app, myself included, but the iPhone app seem to make the best of the two worlds. UI is light, fast and functional.

Tracking your data requires discipline and persistence. My only concern with tools such as this has always been that they required 100% commitment which Nicholas is known for (see video below). I would love to see features added to the web app which allows you to pull activities from other sources such as RSS or Flickr, something that Momento does. The actual how this data can be filtered may be related to keywords or hashtags but never the less it would be great way to collect, analyse and reflect upon your activities. For the time being, Daytum relies much on your persistance to be able to reach a point and enought data is collected. With the knowledge that API is on it’s way we can rest assured that most of the things I just mentioned are on the way. iPhone app is just the first step in that direction, using oAuth and undocumented and currently private API.

To summarise, Daytum is a fantastic way to collect and track important stats. iPhone app is a wonderfully made and designed iPhone app to complement Daytum service. Considering it’s free, including the web service which is also free, limited to 1000 entries giving you enough reason to try it. Should you feel this is something you’d like to continue using, a tiny fee of $4 a month should be no deterrent whatsoever.

Platform: iPhone
Version: 1.0
Cost: Free
Developer: Daytum

See also your.flowingdata [WebApp]

Daytum [iPhone, WebApp] is a post from: CreativeApplications.Net | Follow us on Twitter - Facebook - Flickr - Vimeo

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