Tech Radar
Futurecasting tech impact through interactive visualisations
L'Atelier BNP Paribas is an insights company based in France, specialising in tech that is likely to impact societies and economies in the near future.
They wanted to open up their research to the world, letting people explore what the future could look like and which countries are at the forefront of these revolutions…
New paradigms
In 2020, L'Atelier commissioned research into what they called "the virtual economy" — technologies that enable, facilitate and amplify social experiences and economic transactions in a virtual setting.
From augmented eyewear, through connected infrastructure, to digital identity, the virtual economy is on the cusp of a massive, rapid expansion into our day-to-day lives.
Their research is powered by a proprietary data intelligence engine that tracks the most significant early-stage technologies globally, from idea to market.
Connected tech
Our design team had the challenge of visualising this research, and making its insights clear and accessible.
A specific data-visualisation challenge was how to show the ways 54 key emerging technologies interconnect across three broad categories: access, immersion and transaction. It needed to encompass a complete view of the technology ecosystem.
It also needed to provide a navigation experience that let users focus on a subset of categories, or zoom in to each of the 54 technologies for deeper insights.
Striking a chord
Our design solution was a custom interactive chord diagram, along with a navigation that enabled different zoom levels within the same experience.
The visualisation lets users sort and filter technologies by category, or focus on individual technologies to explore their specific interconnections.
A dot scoring system was developed to provide a visual indication of the maturity level of each technology.
