Basic Elements of Interactive Timelines
Our last blog post dove into the basic functions of timeline makers, helping you decide between a number of choices by identifying the essential requirements an app or software must contain. If you’re looking for more than the basics, an app that creates interactive timelines is a better fit, allowing you to insert video and audio, along with several other elements the user can interact with easily. Dig through these components and find the app that best suits your needs.
Interactive timelines are scaleable
An interactive illustration doesn’t limit the time period you choose for a project. If you want the period to cover a century, that’s certainly possible. If you want a graphic covering millions of years, that’s an option, too. You get to choose how broad or narrow your visual will be, and the app responds accordingly without placing limitations.
Flexible movement and varying interactivity
Another cornerstone of interactive timelines is the relatively unrestricted movement within the app or software. You get to zoom, pan, and navigate however you want, to focus on any given part of your digital illustration.
This element is mostly visible on smartphones and tablets, where the touch screen enhances the functionality of the app. Depending on which app you use, a swipe of the finger should let you move back and forth within a timeline, allowing you to go days, months, years, or millions of years one way or another.
You could be looking at a 100-year time frame and zoom into a single year using an outward pinch of the screen. Pinch the screen inward, and you’re back looking at the full century. The flexibility and interactiveness combine to create a highly user-friendly experience, especially if you use a mobile app. This doesn’t mean that desktop-based software won’t provide similar features. They can, but having to use a mouse and keyboard makes the process more difficult and time-consuming.
The number of interactive components within an application will vary considerably from one tool to the next, making it difficult to pinpoint the exact options to classify as “basic.” Given that, look for applications with the freedom to move within a timeline and a high number of clickable options. Can you click on an image to reveal text? Can you click on a link to open a web page? It boils down to providing more depth about your given subject material using technology as a medium.
Multiple media formats
When covering the functions of basic graphics, we brought up the ability to add text and images. With interactive timelines, however, you can add much more diverse media elements. Leading the pack of additional options is video, where you should be able to upload videos or link to videos found online on a platform such as YouTube.
Audio is the second input leading the list. To provide more in-depth explanations that complement text and images, audio recordings would be a perfect companion. Interactive timelines give you plenty of options. You don’t have to use all of them, but you can mix and match to find the ideal combination for your project.
Design Capabilities
With these additional components, you’re going to require different ways of organising them. Most apps letting you create interactive timelines will provide plenty of customisation options, so you can place the mixed media and text in various layouts while using a suitable colour scheme.
If you want to speed up the process of creating a graphic, they’ll always come with a handful of templates and design options loaded, so you don’t have to worry about minute details.
Export options
When developers create software or apps, they’re mindful that everyone owning a mobile device or computer won’t necessarily have their products installed. Given this fact, most apps make sure interactive timelines are relatively compatible on other platforms, at least to view, if not to edit.
It should be fairly evident that any app will let you print a static version of your visual on paper, but they also let you export them as PDFs and even share them across social media platforms.
Key takeaways
As you can see, interactive timelines make a graphic more appealing and useful on digital platforms, engaging the viewer with enhanced functionality and multimedia. If you find an app or software that has the above components, then hats off to you. If you need some suggestions, check out our app, which offers unrestricted control and movement along with the elements mentioned above. You can see how it works here, and then download it from the App Store.