Somewhere in darkest Lithuania, a talented flash programmer is churning out graph widgets. So I downloaded a copy of the files, (free if you don't remove the link back to him), and tried it out as an alternative forum poll results viewing option.

Example firewall poll results using the flash widget. Original results view in plain html. So what do you think? I'm a bit reluctant to spread flash around as the ONLY way to view data, but this was easy to implement and provides a cheap thrill (click the slices for some bouncy fun).

It doesn't work too well when there are a LOT of poll options as tiny slices are difficult to depict and the legend tends to grow bigger than the flash window (in the example every small choice gets lumped into the white "other" slice), but the visual display is still interesting.

By the way, the bible on visual display of information is this book. I can still remember where I was the day I first saw the Napoleon chart!