A non-journalist’s view of online Super Tuesday graphics
As the Super Tuesday returns came in last night, Alex Vollmer — a Linux and Java programmer from Seattle — critiqued the presentation of several national media web sites.
I find his preferences interesting. We can learn something from his insights.
What he wanted from news web pages, he says, was:
Margin of victory for each candidate Percentage of precincts reporting The number of delegates available The number of delegates each candidate won Clear indication of races that have finished, and those that have not. I want as much information as I can get in a small space I don’t want to navigate through data
His take: He liked The New York Times, National Public Radio and USA Today. CNN and MSNBC fell short. He called the huge The Washington Post map “a glut of hyperactive mouse-oriented popups.”
The Washington Post ’supermap.’ Was it even
possible turn off those damn pop-ups? I couldn’t
figure it out, either.
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Vollmer didn’t care much for interactive maps:
Many sites touted these things as “interactive†which amazes me that it could be considered a possible selling point. I’ll take “informative†over “interactive†any day of the week thank you.
Interestingly, Vollmer was mistaken on one point. He blasted the map at CNN’s site:
I find the stylized map insulting. The northern border of the United States is not a flat. The state borders don’t line up neatly in rows. Not only does this map have the same faults of the others (low data density, too much interaction required), it’s also simply wrong.
The northern border of the United States is, in fact, an east-west line. Perhaps Vollmer is accustomed to conical projections for U.S. maps. What CNN used, of course, was a cylindrical projection.
Top: CNN’s map. Bottom: a
cylindrical Mercator projection.
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While Vollmer’s logic may be technically wrong, his point is still valid: He disliked the map and found it unhelpful.
It’s interesting reading. Check it out in Vollmer’s This is Totally Gonna Work blog.
February 6th, 2008 at 11:11 am
This an interesting observation. As relatively newer technologies such as action scripting and flash get used by more news outlets to present information online, it’s an undeniable trend to make them interactive or animated or “rich.” I wonder if there are news orgs out there that consider how readers would like to consume information online before they “pimp the graphic.” Vollmer’s reaction to some of the online graphics reminds me of the tried and true KISS principle I learned from Dale Peskin, former design guru at The Detroit News during its design heyday in the early-mid 1990s.
Peskin also cautioned his designers, who were well-versed in Quark XPress 3.2, to avoid “Mac rapture.” That’s what he called the outcome of page designed with all the bells and whistles available in Quark at the time (and still are) — abundant use of color boxes and gradients behind centerpieces, thick frames, 12-point dotted rules, etc. Yuck!
Perhaps Vollmer’s remarks could be a gentle reminder that when in doubt, keep interactive graphics simple and informative.
February 6th, 2008 at 11:13 am
I think he makes a lot of good points. I know I looked at the WSJ B-section and really wanted to like their election viewer’s guide, but it just didn’t do it for me. It started nicely by showing delegate numbers, breaking down when polls would close but it left off some vital information (like winner take all vs proportional delegate states).
Of course, it was still the graphic that was photo copied and passed around the watch party I was at (though, in full disclosure a polling expert and not a designer brought it).
PS I also think you always have navigate through data — even if its with those eyeballs instead of a mouse. It’s _datum_ you don’t have to navigate through ;)