Before we get into automated designs, let us see some of the designs which can be extracted from these data. For clear visualizations of these designs, one can visit this miro board. This is where designers would meet and share their ideas prior to automating the whole process.
These designs were constructed by a team of 3 designers. At the top of this board, we can see quite a number of designs presented by each of these designers. These designs were based on an open question approach and they were then discussed and/or merged if they can bring out similar information. On the middle section of the board, we see some lines being drawn connecting designs which can be merged together. At the bottom of the table are the final designs (as for now), which the designers will automate.
Not all of the designs can be explained here, but if need be for more explanation pertaining to each of the designs made through the entire board, one can contact any of the designers through the contacts provided.
Explanation of some designs
In the next few paragraphs, some of the designs in the bottom panel of the miro board will be explained. 4 of the designs are shown on two grids below;
The left panel shows a world map with o's (defenders), x's (goalkeepers), and y's (midfielders) drawn. From this information, the designers can infer for a particular football league (Spanish La Liga or Germany's Bundesliga, etc.) from which parts of the world do most of the defenders or the midfielders or the goalkeepers come from? This can actually help soccer teams in the selection criteria of their players. The design can also be customized to answer the question from which part of the world most of the left or right-footed soccer players are bought from? This is something that can be easily noticed once the left-footed players are distinguished from the right-footed players through colorization.
The right panel is a soccer pitch. We cannot talk about the soccer match events without the playing ground. At the top of the pitch, we can see a timer that runs from 0 to 90 minutes. This is the entire duration of the soccer match. This design is supposed to show the heatmaps of events. Since there are 7 events (pass, foul, shot, duel, free kick, offside, and touch) recorded in these data, a grid of these events is also going to be plotted on the left side of the pitch. The grid will allow the user to shift between events and obtain the statistic or heatmap they want. For example, if one wants to see the statistics of fouls, one just clicks on the grid for fouls and the heatmap of fouls will appear on the football pitch at a chosen time. This design is cumulative, which means if the timer is on 30, the heatmap and statistics provided are for the first 30 minutes of the game. The bars are going to be used to show the frequency of occurrence of each match event at a stated time. However, designers are still contemplating whether to use bars or a pie chart, and whatever the choice in a final design the bars or pie charts will be placed at the top of the picture so that it will not interfere with the heatmap
The left panel shows a line plot with bars underneath it. This design is used to check for the impact of substitutions on the goals scored in an entire match. The line plot shows the substitutes at a particular time in a match, while the bars show the number of goals scored at that time. One would expect few substitutions at the beginning of the match and more of them just after halftime depending on whether the team is winning or losing. But does this increase the number of goals? Do many substitutions warrant more goals scored? These questions can be answered once the design has been automated.
The picture on the right just above shows the number of goals that are scored at a certain moment in the game. By visualizing this for the world cup versus the average of the regular competitions of each country it can be assessed whether the special circumstances (more pressure, stress, (lack of) motivation...) result in a different scoring pattern over time.