Features / Project
Project The Nerd Side of the Reuters.com Redesign
In early May, Reuters began rolling out previews of its new design for Reuters.com. We checked in with Paul Smalera, Editorial Tools Product Manager and Technology Editor at Reuters.com, who fought his way out from under a stack of redesign-related work to answer our questions.
Project Mapping the History of Street Names
OpenNews Fellow Noah Veltman breaks down the design and code decisions behind his History of SF Place Names map.
Project Under the Surface of the NYT Mobile Redesign
- By Michael Behr, Ian Gardner, Andrei Kallaur, Erin Kissane
- Michael Behr, Ian Gardner, Andrei Kallaur
We spoke with three members of team behind the new New York Times mobile site to learn what’s going on under the hood and how they made the design decisions underlying the new view.
Project The Lobbyist Registration Meter
We spotted Tom Lee’s Lobbyist Registration Meter video on YouTube this morning and it made our day. Lee, director of the Sunlight Foundation’s Sunlight Labs, used an old voltmeter, a Raspberry Pi, and Sunlight Foundation data to create a meter that physically displays the number of new lobbyist registrations in Washington, DC. Lee very kindly agreed to answer a few questions about his setup and the data behind it.
Project Replaying A Night in the Life of a Cabbie
At The Boston Globe, I was charged with helping readers understand that struggle—to experience a night in the life of a cab driver—using a digital interactive. The result was published alongside an amazing article by the Globe’s resident journalist-sportswriter-cabbie, Bob Hohler.
Project Launching the Minnesota Legislative Bill Tracker
- By Beth Hawkins, Kaeti Hinck, Tom Nehil, James Nord, Erika Owens, Alan Palazzolo
- Beth Hawkins, Kaeti Hinck, Tom Nehil, James Nord, Alan Palazzolo
- MinnPost
This week, MinnPost launched an effort to track legislation in Minnesota throughout the 2013 session.
Project Introducing Tabula
- By Manuel Aristarán, Mike Tigas
- Manuel Aristarán, Jeremy B. Merrill, Mike Tigas
- OpenNews, ProPublica
A new PDF data extraction tool conceived by Manuel Aristarán and built out in a collaboration between Aristarán, who is a Knight-Mozilla Fellow at La Nación, and Mike Tigas, Fellow at ProPublica, and ProPublica’s Jeremy B. Merrill.
Project Under the Hood of the Open Gender Tracker
- By Erin Kissane, J. Nathan Matias, Irene Ros
- Adam Hyland, J. Nathan Matias, Irene Ros
- Bocoup, MIT Center for Civic Media
Open Gender Tracker is an open source deployable content analysis service funded by a Knight Foundation Prototype grant. We spoke with its creators about the project’s origins, technical specifications, and possible future in and near newsrooms.
Project Chris Amico on the View Source Podcast
On the most recent episode of Dave Stanton’s View Source podcast, Chris Amico walks through the process of making Your Warming World.
Project Fast Hacks: Solr and Newscoop
News startups in and around Georgia helped improve search in Newscoop content management system using Solr.
Project Chase Davis on fec-standardizer
Chase Davis breaks down his fec-standardizer project and explains where it’s going next.
Project How We Made “Your Warming World”
New Scientist’s Peter Aldhous and NPR’s Chris Amico break down the data, mapping, and interface details of their collaboration on Your Warming World.
Project How We Made “For Amusement Only”
- By Trei Brundrett, Billy Disney, Laura June, Scott Kellum, Erika Owens
- Trei Brundrett, Billy Disney, Laura June, Scott Kellum
- The Verge
In a Q&A with Source’s Erika Owens, the team behind For Amusement Only explains how it was done.
Project Fast Hacks: GameDay Live
The Daily Emerald’s Ivar Vong breaks down a homepage takeover experiment.
Project How We Made Snow Fall
- By Steve Duenes, Erin Kissane, Andrew Kueneman, Jacky Myint, Graham Roberts, Catherine Spangler
- John Branch, Steve Duenes, Hannah Fairfield, Ruth Fremson, Wayne Kamidoi, Andrew Kueneman, Sam Manchester, Alan McLean, Jacky Myint, Graham Roberts, Catherine Spangler, Joe Ward, Jeremy White, Josh Williams
- The New York Times
Reporters, designers, developers, and editors who worked on the NYT’s Snow Fall explain how they pulled it off.
Project Anatomy of the “Living Apart” map
Last month, ProPublica launched the Living Apart series with an investigation into the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and an interactive map showing the migration of African Americans from 1890-2010.
Project Spokesman-Review Holiday Lights Map
Ryan Pitts breaks down the recipe for a holiday lights map app, with special nods to artisanal admin interfaces and full-screen BoyerMaps.
Project The New York Times’ Election Results Loader
- By Jacob Harris
- Brian Hamman, Jacob Harris, Jacqui Maher, Michael Strickland, Derek Willis
- The New York Times
Jacob Harris breaks down the data, the code choices, and the rationales behind the NYT’s results loader for the US 2012 elections.
Project How NPR Designed Their Live Elections News App
- By Alyson Hurt
- Jeremy Bowers, Brian Boyer, Danny DeBelius, Tyler Fisher, Jeremy Gilbert, Christopher Groskopf, Alyson Hurt
- NPR
Alyson Hurt explains how the NPR apps team created, tested, and built its Swing State Scorecard and covered results on Election Night.
Project The Making of ProPublica’s Pipeline Safety Feature
Last week, ProPublica released an explainer on fires, chemical spills, explosions, and other incidents related to US oil and gas pipelines, along with an interactive map and a series of charts and tables. Reporter-designer-developer Lena Groeger explains how the project came about, what challenges she encountered, and how she assembled the final presentation.