Visual Voice

By Mallary Jean Tenore

As the 2008 presidential campaign gains momentum, many news organizations are turning to visual forms of storytelling to help break down political statistics in ways that enlighten and inform users.

The New York Times published a noteworthy example of a visual story on the homepage of its Web site earlier this month showing how different groups voted in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries. The information, which appears in the form of moving blocks, is broken down by gender, ethnicity, age, income and education. Each block represents a state and features details about the voting habits in that particular state.

I talked with Shan Carter, the Times' graphics editor, to find out more about what went into creating this campaign interactive on deadline. 

Mallary Tenore: How long did it take you to build this interactive?

Shan Carter: This one took two or three days to build. Some of that was exploring other options, some was collecting and vetting data, but most of it was spent coding and designing in Flash.

How many people were involved in putting the interactive together?

Carter: Mostly just me and my colleague Amanda Cox. Amanda collected the data and came up with the original idea of doing the block histograms, I then coded it up and added the animation. We're a very collaborative department, though, and many other people had good suggestions and feedback. We often bounce ideas off one another and trade projects back and forth.

What goes into putting together a project like this? Do you create blueprints to help map out your ideas?

Carter: We don't have visual blueprints in the traditional sense. Like all things we do, we built the interactive on a foundation of code that we have developed over time. We have some visual components that we've built, like drop-down menus or check-boxes, but often each interactive is so different from the previous one that we don't have too many templates.

What reaction, if any, did you get from users about the interactive?

Carter: As far as I know, we got only positive feedback from our viewers. I received a few e-mails from previous co-workers who really liked it. I was worried that it might be a little too confusing for some people, but mostly people seemed to understand the chart.

Why did you choose to present the interactive in the way that you did? Why not use any color images, for example?

Carter: We like to use our tools economically. The strength of support in each state was shown by the horizontal position of the blocks, and while sometimes it helps to reinforce a point, I didn't think the redundancy was necessary in this case. Also, the blocks would have had to change color as they moved to different categories, and I wanted to keep the color consistency of each state block intact so people wouldn't get confused about the blocks representing changing states.

How do you think interactives help to enhance news organizations' political coverage and users' understanding of political issues?

Carter: That's a pretty big question. Interactive graphics have positives and negatives just like any other medium. Animation and interactivity, when used well, can aid comprehension. They can also obfuscate. Rather than just try to "wow" people, we try to use these tools with purpose so they can help people understand concepts. I think it's even more eye-catching when these special effects are used to educate.