9 Data Visualization Ideas for Digital Journalists

Cutting edge reporting isn’t all about the words—use data visualization to bring wow-factor to your stories.

Data storytelling has become synonymous with modern digital journalism, with animated charts and data visuals peppering the output of premium publishers and newsrooms. Whether you are a designer or agency building out articles for the web, or a digital journalist or creative doing it yourself, we’ve got data visualization ideas that anyone can easily recreate in Vev without writing any code.

Defining Data Visualization

When thinking about data visualization, the first thing that might come to mind is graphs, charts, and maps. Data visualization is defined by analytics platform Tableau as “the graphical representation of information and data.” While this is true, at Vev we empower you to take this a step further, allowing designers to tell stories visually in a variety of ways, utilizing anything from scrollytelling sections to 3D elements to present data-heavy content.

The Advantages of Data Visualization

Give Readers a Better Understanding

The data visualization ideas we cover below offer audiences an accessible way to easily understand key trends and anomalies in data. When data is hidden within the body of an article, it can easily get lost or be misinterpreted, as pointed out in an article our CEO Tine wrote for Financial Marketer. Visually underscoring it with a chart or graphic, for example, can make the importance of the data to the wider story clearer to the reader.

Engage Your Audience

Data visualization is a must when it comes to grabbing attention. With shrinking attention spans and everyone’s tendency to quickly scan articles for anything that looks interesting, data visualizations can act as a hook to get people interested in your content. Once you’ve got your audience scrolling, these infographics, charts, and maps will keep them engaged—especially if you make them interactive and animated.

Increase Shareability and Memorability

Call us nerds, but data visualizations are fun! They can help communicate extremely abstract or dry information in a refreshing, relatable way. Because of this, they make people want to share your content, increasing your reach and helping you to stand out from the crowd.

10 Data Visualization Ideas

The types of data visualization out there varies wildly depending on what it is you are presenting. Some data requires a specific visual format, be it a type of chart or graph, or a 3D graphic. Here are some data visualization ideas that you can use to best deliver your data in a digestible and engaging way.

Animated Charts

What’s better than a static scatter graph? Animated charts! These charts unfold as readers scroll down the page. Geelmuyden Kiese has transformed their long-form content The Unsustainability Report into a bright, engaging experience with Vev. As the reader scrolls, bar charts spring into action, fading in and up or across. This not only guides readers’ attention, it helps to illustrate the data trends.

This ServiceNow report, made in Vev by Message Lab, further demonstrates the power of animated charts. Made with sticky position sections, each section rises with a new colorful chart fading in. In fact, there isn’t much text at all in this report — instead, visuals are used to get the point across, making it a stand-out example of why everyone should ditch PDF reports for visually engaging, interactive web-based content.

3D Model

When it comes to 3D graphics, the HHMI Virus Explorer uses interactive 3D models of each virus to aid people’s understanding of the diversity of viruses based on structure, genome type, host range, transmission mechanism, replication cycles, and vaccine availability. The study uses engaging 3D models of ten different viruses that readers can click on to rotate, view from different angles, and see in cross section, with additional information included on the right-hand side of the screen that clearly describes the visuals in more detail.

Scrollytelling

Scrollytelling is a powerful technique for telling immersive stories on the web, and when it comes to data-rich stories, media outlets like New York Times and Sky News have propelled this technique to the forefront of every journalist’s mind. In an article from The Pudding called “Why the Super Rich are Inevitable”, scrollytelling is used to engage their audience and sustain reader interest.  As the reader scrolls, new illustrations emerge with text floating up and over the images. The use of scrollytelling also allows The Pudding to include illustrations of the facts and figures they are presenting, making it visually appealing as well as easier to understand.

Interactive Map

Have some geographic or location-based data? An interactive map is a data visualization idea you need to try. In this report from Schibsted Partnerstudio, a map is presented with a button below it, which when clicked reveals additional information and data on the map itself. Made in Vev, the designers have made use of Vev’s Show/Hide element, which is available to add to any design from the add-on library in the editor. Who would’ve thought including an interactive map in an article could be so easy?

Visuals and Audio Combined

Time for a data visualization idea that is a little different, but just as effective—combining visuals and audio. This interactive Google AI Experiment collates bird sounds from around the world, leaving us with a tapestry of all of the audio data that has been collected. The page itself is made of hundreds of tiles with soundwaves illustrating the variations and similarities between bird sounds.  As the audience hovers over and clicks on the tiles, the different bird sounds play.

Animated Number Counter

When you have a big bold figure to deliver, you have to make it stand out. This is where animated number counters come into play. Schibsted Partnerstudio use Vev’s animated number counters in their report to spotlight increasing trends. This technique also increases audience engagement in your content, keeping people focused on the page and making them want to continue scrolling.

Horizontal Timeline

This data visualization idea can take your content in a whole new direction. Horizontal scrolling is used on many websites in small sections to break up long-form content and keep readers engaged. This also makes it ideal for breaking up data-heavy content. Horizontal scrolling sections are the perfect building blocks to create timelines that follow a natural left-to-right reader journey. This technique can be seen in this article made in Vev promoting the film The Burning Sea.

Labeled Images

Save space while working reader interactivity into your story with labeled images, as exemplified by Politico in their report on The Hidden Value in Urban Mining. Made in Vev, this report has multiple sections (including a horizontally-scrolling one) in which clickable hotspots are placed across animated illustrations. When clicked, these reveal small, snackable pockets of information. This not only makes readers an active participant charting their way through your narrative, but ensures they are not overwhelmed with large amounts of information.

Tables

Tables have been used to present data for a long time, so this might not sound overly exciting. However, when you have a bulk of data to deliver and want to do so without confusing people, a table is a safe bet and one that can fit seamlessly into a well-designed piece of digital content. Take the use of tables in the earlier mentioned Schibsted Partnerstudio report as an example. The tables make good use of space, and clearly present information in sections rather than in messy paragraphs of text. What’s more, animations have been added to visuals that glide into the table, offering further visual representation of the data at hand.

Create Stunning Data Visualizations Without Coding

Vev gives you the tools to craft immersive and engaging storytelling content adorned with stunning data visualizations. We make it easy to include interactive bar graphs, donut charts, line graphs, and other infographics by adding them directly onto the canvas and inputting your data. Customize further using our pre-built animations to bring your content to life. When you’re ready, publish your content anywhere — including to your existing website.