I’ve written a couple of time about the amazing Tour Tracker. This is an app that offers cycling fans real-time access to follow a race via their computer. the app was written by a cycling addict at Adobe as a proof of concept for their Flex platform. Until now, most of what I’ve been able to find about the creation of this app is from the developer perspective.

Today the design behind the most recent version of the Tour Tracker was explained on Adobe official UX blog.

“The Tracker had to provide access to an enormous amount of data, from video to photos to race-tracking maps to play-by-play commentary and GPS info… And we figured that racing fans—our user base—would want easy access to all of it, all the time.  So how did we keep from cluttering up the UI with controls and display windows?

Well, to be honest, it can be cluttered up… but only if that’s what you want. Otherwise, every bit of chrome can be shrunk and dimmed to the point of near-invisibility, all the better to experience the full-screen goodness of video, interactive course maps, stills… that is, of whatever visual you choose. The key to putting users first, we decided, lay in letting them follow the race in whatever way they wanted.  So we made the Tracker’s UI as configurable as possible—less a UI than an experience-design toolbox.”

ps. This post was written using the brand new WordPress app in the beta version of Yahoo! Mail, part of their new “open” strategy. Worked like a charm!