At the last LA UX Meetup, the LA Times Media Group gave a presentation of how they were using information and news to display visually to their web visitors for a better user experience.

One of the ones that caught my eye was a NCAA Tournament Bracket Map that showed how far each team had to travel if they were to go to the championship. North Carolina having to travel almost 4 times less than any other team is a definite advantage.

Another interesting one in which they said was one of their most popular pages was a Los Angeles County Homicide Map. Information such as gender, race, day of the week, area and cause of death can be sorted, filtered, and searched on. Why it is so popular is anyone’s guess. Perhaps people use it to figure out where not to live. As one person mentioned to me at the table I was at – this was indeed the killer app.

Both show how one can use information in such a way visually that can engage the User, while also very useful.