Online Storytelling

Clickable Interactives

The Map of the Market for Smartmoney.com I feel is a bad way to tell a story. First off, the whole page is an image map; it is broken up in what has to be well over 100 different squares, each of which is a link to more reports for that certain part of the company. Dragging over each square will tell you the company it represents, and some vital information. The problem is that you don’t know what company you’re looking at until you get there. You scroll over random squares, hoping you can find the company you are looking for. The image is broken up into 11 parts, each part with a category. Each category has over double-digit squares within. To tell the story, it becomes a pain. Trying to find the information you want on this site is overly hard, and whoever designed it designed it trying to flex their web-design abilities, and not with the reader in mind.

Slideshow

The New York Times slideshow from a journalist in Afghanistan was an absolutely amazing way to tell a story. First off, any slideshow is a great way to tell a story so long as the images are properly ordered. Readers do not have to go search for any organization. They know what they are looking at as they look at it. Now the reason a slideshow is so effective is pictures describe things better than words ever could. When you deal with a huge social issue, such as Middle Eastern life in times like today, the images are bound to speak volumes. You saw how much different things are there, more so than you could learn from reading any textbook or article. It does an amazing job of showing the key differences, the struggles faced over there, and the way their social views are different from our own. It was a great way to tell a story.

Print Plus

Print plus is the best form of storytelling period. It allows for multiple forms to be included, meaning whatever the reader’s preference is, they are likely to find a satisfactory method within a Print Plus article. Comcast.net, for example, shows many stories. It has the normal just text article, along with the image in the top left which you can click, and it will give a slideshow of images related to the story, each with a telling caption. To the right of the page are links to what is called “The Fan.” “The Fan” is what Comcast uses to refer to their video database, and within that database you can find the video related to the story you are reading. I used Comcast as an example because they cite other broadcasters for their news, and are neutral in reporting. Comcast is a great example of Print Plus, if you want pictures, audio/video, or just plain text, the print plus method is the perfect method. The diversity in displaying is what makes it particularly effective, and common.