I’m a recent convert to treemaps — a way of presenting information in block form, where the block denote areas of information which can then be drilled through to reach the underlying text, pictures or whatever. It’s best explained by seeing an example.
Anyway, here’s a great example of a treemap, applied to news (thanks Marc’s Outlook on Productivity, in turn from Ole’s Critical Section). Created by Marcos Weskamp, the newsmap draws on Google’s news aggregator to take the treemap concept a stage further “and provides a tool to divide information into quickly recognizable bands which, when presented together, reveal underlying patterns in news reporting across cultures and within news segments in constant change around the globe.”
I’m still hunting for software that can take all the documents on my hard-drive and turn them into a treemap. The closest I’ve found is the excellent SpaceMonger from Sean Werkema, which does a wonderful job of allowing you to see what’s taking up space on your disks, hard and otherwise.
You should try Treemaps at http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/treemap/demos/. Some background at http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/treemap-history/. You could also try SequioaView at http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/.
You should try Treemaps at Treemaps Demos. Some background here. You could also try SequioaView.