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Chris Harrison designed an illuminating visualization of three levels within Wikipedia and their interconnections. His design starts with one large circle, the center of which holds the parent topic. Secondary links off the parent topic are located within the circle, and tertiary links, those found in the secondary pages, are found on the rim of the circle. Because of the exponential increase in connected links from the parent, the links get progressively smaller as they drift away from the central topic. Each link is connected with other links that are found on their respective pages by lines, with groups of interconnected links condensing.
This forces highly connected groups of pages to clump together, essentially forming topical groups. The center acts as an anchor while the ring provides a fixed perimeter. This allows the secondary, super-categories to “float” above clusters.
Chris Harisson’s website includes many examples of wikipedia pages
The grouping of the secondary links leads to deeper understanding of the relationship between different topics, and how entirely dissimilar issues can connect. While this method of organizing data can be used for any topic, the data is not what is interesting or informative; it is the way the data spreads out and bunches up that can offer the most insight.
