The BBC demonstrated today just how powerful graphics could be to tell a story. With one graphic, they quite literally saved the writing of ten thousand words.
The interesting thing is the take up of these sort of graphics. At first they were unwanted clutter from the big news houses, with niche websites such as Information Is Beautiful filling the gap. Now, internet powerhouses such as the NY Times, the Guardian and the BBC are spending increasingly more time, and more money on visualisations. No news story is complete without a graphic to explain it.
This isn’t a complaint, it is a great thing that publishers are learning to exploit the full potential of the internet. It will be interesting how coders push the area forward. Sky News’ iPad app is a great demonstration about how all the available information can be packaged in an intuitive GUI.
Anyway, for know, go and have a look at the beeb’s offering, and then go and lose several hours to Information Is Beautiful.