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Guantanamo Bay interactive presents data effectively
I wanted to highlight a recent AP interactive, titled “Shutting down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp” for several reasons. First, I blogged about another AP interactive, “Bailout Tracker,” that did not use data visualization as effectively as this example, and I thought the two could be used as a great case example. Second, this type of story is the ideal situation to present data to the users, allowing them to find their own story.
Both AP interactives use Flash and an overwhelming amount of data. However, take a look at each and think about which one grabs your attention. For me, it was the Guantanamo Bay interactive, simply because of it’s elegant and clean opening page. On the other hand, the Bailout Tracker had a stale interface, asking me to click anywhere (which is a waste of the user’s time).
What I most enjoyed (and appreciated) about the Guantanamo piece was the “List of Detainees” database. Providing a search function was great, especially in that it updated the fields with each letter submission, rather than waiting until the user clicks a button. The “Latest Identified Transfers” at the bottom was also a nice touch to keep the interactive fresh and updated.
Make sure to click on a detainee in the database to see the extra information about each. Times that info box by the 239 detainees and you start to realize just how much data is presented in this interactive!
I have two small suggestions for improvement. First, I would have liked the horizontal number scale on the bottom of the “Detainees by Citizenship” to be detached from the scrolling section, so that when I scroll up to the top section I can still see the X-axis. Second, if an age was not given for a detainee, the database probably should have displayed “N/A” instead of “O” to avoid any confusion.
I am definitely a big fan of this piece. Kudos to interactive producer Matt Ford, Nick Rapp, John Parsons, Troy Thibodeaux, Andrew Selsky, and AP team!
Other posts that might interest you:
- AP political interactive displays great data visualization and video help feature
- AP “Bailout Tracker” visualizes data, but not effectively
- USA Today launches innovative presidential approval tracker
Tags: Andrew Selsky, AP, Associated Press, data visualization, Guantanamo Bay, interactive, John Parsons, Matt Ford, Nick Rapp, politics, Troy Thibodeaux Discussion
2 comments for “Guantanamo Bay interactive presents data effectively”
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I’m curious to know your opinion on data visualization in Flash vs. HTML/CSS/JavaScript. It feels like some have brought this debate to the floor, but only because it’s strictly by what can or cannot be done in each, when that isn’t getting to the core issue.
It feels like news organizations stuff everything into Flash not because it might be the best technology by which to represent data but because their content management system is too limiting to make anything with “traditional” technology. Flash is a complete data/code/interface environment box that can transcend poor CMSs.
If I wanted to share the permalink of a detainee, how would I do that? If I wanted Google to crawl the results of my report, how would I do that? Will the Adobe and the proprietary Flash plugin be around forever compared to traditional, open Web standards? EveryBlock can show off charts, but you’ll need a better CMS to handle the level of prominence that is given to data.
Just about all journalists who think “multimedia” or “data visualization” think in Flash right away. Why? Is it a relatively low loading time? And how the window panes show on clicking? Is it no browser window scrolling but Flash window scrolling? And has the AP settled on bundling data visualization into Flash because SWFs can transcend Web sites and exist as independent presentations on their own, despite the disadvantages I mentioned?
I’m curious to know why a more comprehensive approach hasn’t been taken by news organizations if they are serious about data visualization.
You have some great points, Rich. The lack of permalinks is a big negative of Flash, although there is an option (although rarely seen) to add this functionality. Google does crawl Flash projects now, but probably still not as efficiently as HTML sites.
From my perspective, it wasn’t a matter of choosing the best technology, it was building with what I knew. Starting out, I only knew Flash and Actionscript, therefore all of my multimedia projects were built in Flash. Now that I am learning HTML,CSS,Java and more, I do realize the limitations of Flash.
That being said, I would argue that Flash is still a great tool for data visualization simply because it is easy to hook up databases with PHP and other interactive data tools with Flex. Making something as interactive as you see in Flash would be near impossible with HTML or the like.
I would be interested in hearing other people’s opinions though. Maybe this could turn into it’s own post!