Thursday, October 28, 2010

Decision 2010


This interactive graphic appears on MSNBC’s website, but provides no credit for reporter or artist. The graphic also fails to specify when the graphic was created, posted, or updated.

I like that the graphic is an interactive timeline because it’s pretty rare; however, I’m not sure this was the best way to organize this information. While the graphic is easy to follow and navigate, the information along the timeline covers so many different aspects of so many different races. A timeline would have been a better choice for following the course of one campaign race over the last year. This graphic covers many different races in many different states, so the timeline does not provide any continuity for the information.

This graphic gives brief synopses of various campaign news stories over the last year. By clicking on a day, that particular synopsis pops up in the middle of the screen as larger text. The purpose of the graphic just seems to be a look back at some of the campaign stories over the last year that have led up to the November elections.

The graphic would be much more effective if the creator could have given the information some kind of continuity. Focusing on the timeline of one key race would have provided continuity. Focusing on the Democratic versus Republican chances over the last year would have provided continuity. Listing random summaries of many different races over a long time period provided no continuity for viewers.

Anyone interested in politics and the November elections would take a minute to look at this information graphic, but they probably wouldn’t look at it for very long. The information is too scattered for a person to find much of interest.

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