How to graphically represent customer flow in indoor environments?

Question

I'd like to know how can I represent human streams and paths in indoors facilities. Where to are people moving? How do they move and in which proportions?

Something like Aaron Koblin's Flight Patterns or Facebook's Visualizing Friends would fit my needs, but somehow they don't seem to show the stream/flow direction, which is a crucial dimension in an indoors paradigm.

Answer 1

• Weighted graphics on the ends of a line; the thicker/longer an arrowhead or oval is at the end of a line for the more people going in that direction.
• Colored ends at a line, say red and blue to make a purple with a given color representing a direction, and the mix showing which direction people went. Full red or blue being all one direction and purple being a complete mix.

Answer 2

Judging by the fact the asker's profile says "front-end developer & responsive web designer", I'm guessing this is to be published online - meaning motion can be used.

One of the best ways of visualising motion and flow is to use, well, motion and flow (or the illusion of it).

This wind map of the USA uses HTML5 canvas particle generation to give the impression of movement, speed, flow and volume. It's incredibly intuitive.

A handy thing to know about how motion is perceived is that you need very little to create the sensation of motion. Notice how, on that site, the particles simply grow then fade away - but you barely notice the fading unless you follow one particle. They don't actually move as such (if they did, it would cause problems) - but creates a consistent sense of movement in the chosen direction.

Static image: