Abstract: A method in a computer of building a visual representation model for presenting plural forms of data from a data source to a user, comprising the steps of creating a first file of data (model file) representative of one or more physical attributes of one or more elements associated with one of a plurality of nodes in the visual representation, creating a second file of data (configuration file) representative of visual attributes of the one or more elements for each of the plurality of nodes in the visual representation and associating a variation in the visual appearance of the nodes in correlation with variation in the data from the data source which is associated with the nodes.