Empire State Building Project Gantt Chart

You would think that growing up in southern NJ means I have had plenty of opportunities to go visit NYC and all of its attractions. But somehow I have never made it to the main ones just about every other NYC tourist have seen, such as the Empire State Building.

I finally had a chance to make it there on a weekend trip to NYC, and is immediately greeted with this large display in the lobby.

It was completed in 1931, at that time, at 102 stories high (1454 ft), it was the tallest building in the world. It stood as the tallest building in NYC until the World Trade Centers were built. It was once again the tallest building in NYC after the twin towers came down during the 9/11 attacks.

So during my visit, it was the tallest building in NYC.  I did attempt to go out to the viewing deck a few times. But the weather was stormy so I couldn't stay out there long. It was too windy and the visibility was almost none.

What I found most fascinating, however, is the project schedule showing the progress of construction.

I know, what an interaction design geek.

I was in awe! To see a non-computer generated project Gantt chart! This is pre MS Project and if you look closer, you'll notice it's all art deco font as well.

An original data visualization! You hardly ever see any of this nowadays, not ones that were not generated digitally.  This format of presenting information is obviously very successful for the type of information it is communicating, which is why we still see Gantt charts today for communicating project schedules and progress.

What a gem for the UI/UX eye! Ok, enough geeking out, back to being a tourist. ;)


So as I made my way up toward the top, a mom with 3 kids were in front of me.  We came across a guy in a safari outfit who said to the family that they should feel free to go up and take a picture with the King Kong (and that it doesn't cost anything).

The mom saw no harm in it and sent the 3 boys up. They got into position to take the picture, and the King Kong said "Boo!" sending them screaming. :D

Of course, that means I absolutely had to have my picture taken with King Kong.  He does look a lot like a statue instead of a person in a King Kong costume. He certainly stood still enough earlier on that you really thought he was just a statue. What great fun!

After I made it to the top and had my fill of being blown around by the gusting rain and wind, I made my way down. In the elevator was this marble silhouette of the building. Really classy!

Experiencing adidas miCoach: Analyzing Workout Details

There are lots of ways to analyze my workout performance after I sync the data to the web. The most basic one is the automatic system feedback that tells me my performance against what miCoach had prescribed for me.

There’s also the quick visual on my heart rate chart that shows how much my heart rate stayed within the workout colors intended.

I can also open the color zone boxes at the right of my heart rate chart to see actual time and stats spent within the color. According to this workout, I spent more than 4 minutes of the 21 min workout in green.

I can also overlay another statistic on top of my current stat view. I found it fascinating to overlay the pace data on top of the heart rate. Most of the time an increase in my pace means an increase to my heart rate. Sometimes I have to stop at street corners or pause for other reasons, but my heart rate isn’t that reactive so it might only fluctuate slightly.

And finally, there’s a checkbox on the bottom right corner of the chart called “Analysis Bounds”. When I turn that on, I can drag the boundaries around on the chart to focus in on the area of the workout I really care about. This workout had 5 minutes of warm up and 10 minutes of cool down. What I really cared about was the middle few minutes where I was going back and forth between the green and yellow zones. I dragged the bounds in to the beginning and end of that area and the summary stats at the top adjusts to reflect only the data within my boundaries. I actually hit 100% within that half a mile block!

That got me thinking whether I did just as well with some of my other workouts. I can click on the workout name and open the workout navigator and quickly jump to a previously completed workout and do this all over again. :)

Experiencing adidas miCoach: Working Out and Sharing Results

So my first workout was supposed to be redoing the Assessment Workout on Saturday – but the weather was frigid for outdoor running in Boston so it didn’t happen. I figured I couldn’t have deteriorated that much and my previous results were probably fine.

I created a public view of my latest Assessment Workout using the Share functionality, so you can see the full workout screen shot with the coach’s feedback too.

Armed with my existing assessment, I proceeded with doing the first plan workout that was scheduled for Monday morning.

I was still on east coast time, so woke up early enough to do a run before starting the day. I put on my heart rate monitor, clipped the stride sensor onto my shoe, and headed down to the hotel treadmill with my iPod and Pacer. I forgot that I had previously left Pacer on Mandarin, so was pleasantly surprised by a female Mandarin speaking coach welcoming me to miCoach. I did a short 7 min free workout first because I found in the past that the heart rate signal is best after I start sweating. After finishing that workout I started up workout #1 of my lose weight plan.

It was a fun workout actually, and wasn’t too long either so I had time to sync the data to my account before jumping in the shower. I remembered that I wanted to hear my coaching in English next time so I changed that on the web first.

Then I plugged Pacer into my computer via the USB cable and synced via the miCoach Manager.

When that was done I went back to my Dashboard to see that it updated with my latest data.

That’s when I noticed I had a new achievement!

Turns out I had reached my first 10,000 calories since I started using miCoach! That’s pretty sweet. :-)

Clicking on the big 10000 took me to my workout results that gave me this achievement.

I overlaid my pace info on top of the heart rate info before using the Share functionality to create the public page of workout #1, which also shows my notes and ratings too.

First workout done, and 32 more to go! According to the plan tracker at the bottom of my dashboard I’ve completed 3% of my plan. Feels good!