Articles

Projects walkthroughs, tool teardowns, interviews, and more.

Features

The New York Times’ Election Results Loader

By Jacob Harris

Posted on November 29, 2012
Jacob Harris breaks down the data, the code choices, and the rationales behind the NYT’s results loader for the US 2012 elections.
How NPR Designed Their Live Elections News App

By Alyson Hurt

Posted on November 23, 2012
Alyson Hurt explains how the NPR apps team created, tested, and built its Swing State Scorecard and covered results on Election Night.
The Making of ProPublica’s Pipeline Safety Feature

By Lena Groeger and Erin Kissane

Posted on November 19, 2012
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.
Mother Jones’ Voter Suppression Map

By Tasneem Raja

Posted on November 13, 2012
How the Mother Jones nerd desk whipped up a multi-layered map of verified incidents of voter suppression for the 2012 US elections.
The NYT’s Visual Election Outcome Explorer

By Mike Bostock

Posted on November 5, 2012
Mike Bostock explains how he and Shan Carter created the 512 Paths interactive feature, from early sketches to complete implementation.
The Guardian’s Sandy Incidents Map

By Simon Rogers

Posted on November 2, 2012
Simon Rogers on the rapid development of their verified Sandy events map and dataset.
WYNC & KPCC’s California Elections Map

By John Keefe

Posted on October 26, 2012
How the WNYC data team turned California’s live elections data into an embeddable map based on a
Rhode Island General Assembly Attendance Data

By Timothy C. Barmann

Posted on October 25, 2012
From paper and PDF records to live text to database to interactive tool, step by step.
Homicides in the District

By Kat Downs and Serdar Tumgoren

Posted on October 18, 2012
How the Washington Post’s development team cleaned the data and built an app to support a 15-month investigation into DC homicide cases.
Introducing Opened Captions

By Dan Schultz

Posted on October 16, 2012
Opened Captions makes it easy to create web applications and visualizations that react the second words are spoken on live television.
Free the Files API + Q&A with Al Shaw

By Erin Kissane and Al Shaw

Posted on October 16, 2012
ProPublica’s interactive data-analysis project gets an API, and Al Shaw answers our development questions about the making of Free the Files.
Stop & Frisk: Guns

By Erin Kissane

Posted on July 18, 2012
A mapping project from WNYC that displays NYPD stop-and-frisks by block and locations where the police discovered guns during such stops.
Miso Project

By Erika Owens

Posted on July 17, 2012
Miso is an open source toolkit designed to expedite the creation of high-quality interactive storytelling and data visualisation content.
PAC Track

By Al Shaw

Posted on July 8, 2012
Expenditure tracking for super PACs during the 2012 election campaign, showing filings and contributor data.
Illinois School Report Cards

By Brian Boyer

Posted on July 8, 2012
A tool for Chicago-area parents to compare school performance data, and a home for the Tribune’s reporting on school performance.
Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law

By Darla Cameron

Posted on June 16, 2012
We assembled a database of stand your ground cases in Florida to encourage people to explore the cases to see how the law was being applied. We did this because no government entity was tracking such cases.
SchoolBook

By Tyson Evans

Posted on June 16, 2012
The New York Times and WNYC have joined forces on a new site dedicated to news, data and conversation about schools in New York City. SchoolBook is now the main place to find coverage of schools in New York by The Times and WNYC. SchoolBook’s home page will mix those news, feature and multimedia stories with essays by members of the education community, as well as photos, videos, queries, comments and more.