in response to my demo
CONCEPT
To visualize, in a digestible, simplistic way, the subject's progress through life.
DESIGN
Squares, specifically grid cells, were used due to their uniform nature. The grid also introduces a spatial element - there are now two axes. The lateral axis, yesterday and tomorrow. The vertical axis, this time last year, and this time next year. Due to the uniformity of the gridcells, as it can't be aligned with differing sizes, colors must be the primary difference between them to denote significance. The unit size - one week - was chosen for brevity. Days would be too long, over 29000 in 80 years. Months would be too short - 960 - and would not update as frequently. There is a break between each decade to introduce a vertical rhythm.
IMPLEMENTATION
PHP was used for this product due to its quick calculation and indifference to the client's local time and date. PHP's date functions are quite powerful. The process was quite simple - determine the subject's date of birth, find the number of weeks between today and the date of birth to determine the subject's age (On this note, its important to notate that the first column of cells is not January 1st, but the week immediately proceeding the subject's birthday). Use a nested loop to count out the number of years by the number of weeks. Perform a check to determine the color of the squares, comparing the iterator i*j to the number of weeks old the subject is. If it is less, than it is a week that has already passed. If it is the same, it is the current week; if it is more, the week has not yet passed. Assign colors to squares accordingly. Every 10 "years", or 10 iterations in the outer loop, we put a break to denote a new decade.
BEYOND
The implications of this design are stark as its a reminder of death. The key to turning it from a frightening reminder into a positive experience is to reframe the context of time as something that counts up instead of down; marking important events in special colors for example, will help the observer to remember that all weeks are not the same. For example, if the week where you had first met a friend is marked, the observer might consider how long it's been since they had met. Highlighting the importance of past events will create a sense of wonder for the future.
This same concept would make a remarkable resume or portfolio as it combines age with experience. Interactivity could be found by, for example, hovering over the cells. They might expand and clarify the significance of that week - what skills were first studied or projects were completed. A comical take would be generating more weeks on the end as the user scrolls down, so that the subject never dies. Perhaps this could be used as a historical tool for a well-documented figure, where postmortem the focus shifts to the subject's effect on the world.