The interactive infographic

Here’s where you can yield to temptation and get yourself in trouble. The world is full of infographics of all sorts these days, but that also means the world is full of poorly designed infographics. Don’t be that designer.

Here’s a nice one in that it is obvious, clear and shares a lot of information. It has a slightly unusual presentation, but it doesn’t take long to wrap your mind around what they’re doing. (At least that was my experience.) The page is a bit long — because the graphic is long, because the information is plentiful — which could have created some layout problems, but they wisely chose to use a float technique. That, really, is perhaps the best part of the design.

Check out ProPublica’s Tangled Web and see what you think.

And while you’re at it, consider all of the reporting and data crunching that had to go into crafting a project like that.

The 1940 Census infographic

There are so many infographics. Too many. Some elegant. Some far, far too busy. Some are just designed, I’m sure, to turn you off as a reader. The best ones, in my opinion make sense at a glance. I’m reminded of this because I stumbled across this infographic that went along with newly released data from the 1940 Census. (Why it took 72 years for this to be shared is a different story.

But look at this infographic and see how long it takes you to figure out what is going on.

Where style and data meet

Journalism (and public relations for that matter) is frequently becoming more than getting a good quote and writing tight copy. Retrieving, analyzing, synthesizing and curating data is a growing part of the job. Take it away Peter Verweij:

At a time when large numbers of journalists are being laid off — because print newspapers are closing or decreasing the number of editors — data journalism is becoming a great way to get value out of journalistic work.

Newspapers are also exploring it, and data journalism could potentially attract more readers to print or online editions.

[...]

Looking at the list of topics and presentations of the NICAR (National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting) conference, it seems journalists and coders are now officially engaged. It all starts of course with how to use spreadsheets; doing some statistics, making graphs or mapping the data.

That post includes lots of tips and tools, making it worth a read.

Interactive infographic

Here’s a simple and informative infographic from NPR that breaks down unemployment in the U.S. on the demographic basis of education and age.

Here’s the infographic, all alone.

Checking out the source you’ll see a little jquery, a little javascript and when you put them together you have a very effective tool for telling a story.

To really ruin your weekend, here’s a comparative chart examining this period to other recessions.

Charts made simple

Got a bit of data you’d like to display in a graphic in you story? You can insert your numbers into Excel and make a chart that you can copy and paste elsewhere. Or you can use a free online service like instantpiechart.com.

That tip is from Bryan Murley at Innovation in College Media, who’s also pointing out The Guardian’s launch of n0tice which, despite its unfortunate name, has an interesting concept behind it:

The Guardian is launching n0tice, a social news platform that draws a little from Craigslist, a little from Foursquare, a little from Ning.

“It’s a place where you can share news, post details about forthcoming events or let people know you have something to sell or share,” the project’s FAQ puts it. Just like IRL message boards, “everyone else in your locality will be able to see what you’ve posted and also take part.”

n0tice — which is, for the moment, still in private beta — is citizen-driven: It allows people the ability to create their own noticeboards (er, n0ticeboards) about whatever topics and events they want. As Matt McAlister, the Guardian’s director of digital strategy, notes in a blog post announcing n0tice’s live beta, users can customize the branding, the overall aesthetic, and even the subdomain of their particular noticeboards. And “we’ll also give you options to customize the content using some filters like following people, tags and locations, though that feature is still being developed.”

Will it be just another platform, or does it have enough juice to stand alone? Time will tell, but the idea is intriguing. You can sign up now for an invitation when they come out of private beta.