From Fs_wiki

Design brief

The Metroscope is composed of a server containing a database that is constantly keeping up to date from all the latest feeds, and a visually attractive and animating client that works through displaying these feeds. Possibly the client is written is Javascript. It may come in several varieties (as a static web-page, a desk-top widget, or as a screen-saver that is graphical and can be stared at from across the room).

The design has two parts; the data in each record, and the order that the records arrive.

Not all fields below are active for all types of event. I call them all events, even though a house for sale or a speech by an MP is not always an event.

Fields

type of event

news, pledge, fixmystreet, housesale, lottery grant, flood alert, upcoming meeting, Freedom of Information disclosure, etc.

location of event

lat/long of point, or geographical region (eg city boundaries)

short headline for the event/report

You can give a character limit for this if you like

summary text for the event

(doesn't always exist)

url for the event

This is where it links to when you click on it. This is how stories start

reference event

may point to a previous event which this is connected, such as the report of the hole that is now fixed; or the event is someone new signing a pledge, when the original event was the establishment of the pledge.

date-time of event

Future, present or past, depending on the type of the event

monetary figure for the event

exists for house prices or lottery grants

Repeat counter

How many times you have seen this one before and not clicked on it

Hit counter

Number of people in your neighbourhood who have clicked in the URL of this event when it was shown to them. If it is for a pledge or an MP speech that hosts comments, you may as a result expect to find people you know leaving notes in the comment.

It is not important to visualize all the information explicitly. I have tested two designs; a ticker tape and that unfurling flags demo I have showed you. The first is obvious, but hard to read; the second is absolutely adequate, but not fantastic. Make something fascinating to watch even if you don't read it.

The other part of the design is what rate, what order of events, and how often you see repeats. In the long term, this will be the most sophisticated part of the whole system. This is where the filtering -- if necessary -- will be applied.

There will be specialization. Someone who just happens to let his screen saver run for 4 minutes a week will get something different to someone who leaves it on this setting in the corner of the room all day.

Some of the design will come in the form of options that can be empirically tested and optimized. Do links shown in big letters get more clicks that those in small? What is the best rate and time of day to remind people of a council meeting such that it maximizes attendance?

This thing is going to evolve through experiment. It's not important to get it completely right at first, so much as to make something that will be immediately striking -- perhaps some of the messages that come through will be instructions, eg "sports scores always appear in red"