The Berkeley Center for New Media has launched a new visualization tool called “Opinion Space“. Described as an “experimental new system for group discussion”, it moves away from bi-polar two-sided debates and visualizes discussions as a continuum.
To get started, participants are asked to drag a slider to rate five propositions on the chosen topic and type their initial response to a discussion question. Then using Principal Component Analysis from advanced mathematics, Opinion Space plots your overall opinion as a yellow point (or star) in the constellation of other viewpoints. People with similar opinions will be close in proximity.
It uses a view similar to a heatmap, but adds special “landmarks” which indicate the views of public figures based on public-records.
via The Technology Chronicles : Opinion Space — new tool maps your viewpoint.
