playmedia

World Cup 2010 by Marca

I stumble upon new interfaces _all the time_. An interface of a computer program, a website, an iphone application etc.  Most of them are “normal”, some of them irritate me because I don’t get them, but some interfaces are just awesome. I wanna share these amazing interfaces with you and show how they differ from regular interfaces.

I came across the next interface via smashingmagazine.com, but now it’s all over the web. The world cup 2010 play schedule by Spanish newspaper Marca, it gives a perfect overview of the teams, dates, places and stages of the FIFA soccer world cup which is held in South Africa this month.

Think of all the boring and hard to navigate tree structures or lists the others use to show the schedule. The Marca interface is just a brilliant combination of content and interface. Placing the schedule in a circle is just brilliant, it uses the outer circle as input and the inner circle for showing content. You can chose from a lot of inputs to show detailed output in a place you want it to (the center of the screen).

At a first glance you immediately notice the different information categorized by color. Green for country teams, Red for dates, Blue for stadiums and Orange for the different stages. It uses the color to order the content without making a carnival out of it. Notice how the flags next to the countries also add even more color.

When you move your mouse over it the content changes according to the selected input (a national team, a date, a stadium or a stage), it is remarkably easy to navigate considered the possible amounts of inputs the user can select. When you put your mouse in the center circle you can go to an input option fast and accurate, just as Fitts wants you to.

Although I am very fond of the interface there are some minor problems with it:

• Maybe you haven’t even noticed it but the countries are listed based on the Spanish Country names (England translates to Inglaterra and thus comes next to Honduras)
• There is a possibility to click on a match time in the inner circle, this leads to a new page with the same interface loading again (maybe it will link to a new page when the match is played?).

Apart from these small inconsistencies the interface is a great way to get quick access to the World Cup schedule. A job well done by Marca!