One of the biggest challenges a designer faces if simplifying the complex… creating order out of chaos. It’s our job to present data in an effective, visually elegant manner. More often than not, this can be accomplished with conventional methods of displaying data - paragraphs, tables, pie charts and the like, but from time to nature of the problem calls for a solution that’s far more creative and interesting. Add Flash to the mix, and throw in some Papervision 3D and you get Spectra Visual Newsreader.

It’s essentially an online RSS feed reader created by MSNBC.com in order to present masses of content in an interesting and engaging way. It allows the user select news channels grouped in categories and sub-categories, and then displays the headlines in a 3d space that can be explored.

As awesome as Spectra is, there method of displaying this data is one possible solution to the problem of presenting headlines in an innovative, non-linear way. The field of Data Visualization fascinates me, because the options are really limitless.

Here are a few links to get the juices flowing:

• Smashing Magazine’s article ~ Data Visualization: Modern Approaches
• Digg Labs
• Visual Complexity