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Dallas Cowboys Stadium: Two multimedia approaches, one story
New York Times’ version (left) and USA Today’s version (right)
Last week, I came across two eerily similar multimedia packages about the new stadium for the Dallas Cowboys. The New York Times chose a video format, allowing the user to sit back and watch the 3D animation and listen to the reporter’s synced voice-over track. On the other hand, USA Today built an interactive graphic, allowing the user to move the animation with a scrubber bar. This is a great opportunity to analyze the two and think about how the medium selected impacts the user experience.
The New York Times spends a minute and a half taking the viewer on a virtual tour around the new stadium, highlighting the stairs, retractable roof, paneled side walls, corporate suites, and the jumbo tv screen. The reporter’s track is a little dull, but the graphics are extremely elegant and nicely timed to the vo. The video held my attention until the end, leaving me with the ironic question of whether the super-sizing leaves enough room to play a game. Great hook … but now what? Where are the links to the story for more information? It baffles me that this piece is unconnected to everything, even an archive of Dallas Cowboys football stories. That’s a big fail in my book.
USA Today organizes its presentation almost exactly like that of the New York Times, starting with the retractable roof, then the paneled side walls, on to the jumbo tv, and ending with the stadium levels. However, while the presentation is still asynchronous, it allows the user to go at his/her own speed by scrubbing the bar at varying speeds. I wondered why they did not add notches to show stopping points, or just throw away the scrubber completely and use a step graphic. The scrubber easily breaks if the user doesn’t meticulously release their mouse over the scrubber which is really aggravating, and I’m not sure how the scrubber enhances usability. They do get props though for providing multiple jump-off points to learn more about the video board and avid fans.
Check out both pieces, and think about the the difference in user experience between the sit-back-and-watch video and the dig-in-and-play graphic. Which did you like better and why? I’m going to have to vote for New York Times on this one merely because of the technical bugs in USA Today’s piece. However, I would otherwise think that an interactive graphic would always be more suitable for an architecture story. Thoughts?
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Tags: Discussion
5 comments for “Dallas Cowboys Stadium: Two multimedia approaches, one story”
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Interesting analysis, Tracy. Thanks.
Here’s what’s bugging me. That NYT video is only a minute-and-a-half long. For all the length of its huge horizontal “scrubber,” the USA Today graphic has only a few data points on it.
How many man-hours went into redrawing the stadium in a 3D application? Were those expensive man-hours worth it, given the small amount of storytelling each paper did with the finished piece?
Unless there are more components out there that we’re not seeing, I wonder if either newsroom got its money’s worth.
Great point, Charles. I did notice that USA Today utilized the construction company’s renderings so that cut down on the production time significantly. I agree that the storytelling was limited on both, which is why I appreciated the jump off points on USA Today’s version. Unfortunately, I don’t think there are any other hidden components …
Dallas Morning News did a nice interactive that is not as buggy as USA Today’s graphic. Much more user friendly and seems to have more interesting fact about the new stadium.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/graphics/1206/stadium/
Great find, Desiree! That definitely helps put everything in perspective.
Interesting how rich the DMN graphic is in comparison to the others. That shows obvious differences during the content gathering phase about what (and what not) to include …
Personally, I prefer graphics that let you point and click in “hot spots” inside of them (not sure what the term is), like the Dallas Morning News’ version. This way, I can explore it at my own pace. Videos are not really interactive because you’re more of a passive observer.
The scrubber bar approach is interesting but maybe it would have been better if the headers in the top of the graphic were clickable. I tried to click on “The Roof”, “Retractable end zone doors”, etc. It seems logical to make those clickable so that the user can jump to different parts of the presentation.