Explaining complexity
As a digital content maker, I’ve put in a lot of effort into explaining things over the years. On this page are a select handful of memorable explainers and data visualisation projects.
Back in 2011, as creative director of Strategic Development at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, I ran a project researching ways and means of developing interactive and video explainers. These went beyond using brevity as style guide and large poster graphics as semiotic summaries of complex data sets, or the useful step of summarising news stories and longform articles as bullet points at the top of a page.
Nearing a decade on, it’s been interesting to look back and reflect on how relevant this content remains. After all, a decade in digital equates to a lifetime!
First up is a series of five short video explainers, describing the first principles of the digital world, written and directed in 2011.
Digital world
Transcript: We are somewhere at the beginning of what’s being called the Digital Revolution, which is said to have kicked off in the 1970s when devices moved from analogue and mechanical, to digital. Today, there’s more computer power in modern calculators, watches and phones than was needed to land men on the moon in 1969.
Like the Agricultural and Industrial revolutions before, this is a distinct time of great change, and it’s affecting the daily lives of people all over the world...
PODCASTING
Transcript: Podcasting arrived in 1999, just in time for the new century.
Its name is a blend of two words. The POD comes from iPod, which is one of many portable devices that allow you to playback a digital audio or video file. And casting, as you can probably guess, comes from the word broadcasting. Podcasting has liberated audiences from the tyranny of program schedules…
SOCIAL MEDIA
Transcript: Social Media is the term used to describe the greatest realm of real time social activity on the Internet today. It encapsulates digital tools and activities that enable communication and sharing across the Internet. Social media is so popular because it provides a simple way for us to connect with each other, using the types of social behaviours we already understand...
MOBILE
Transcript: Mobile phones are everywhere… they’re fast becoming an extension of our personalities. Talking, texting, emailing, browsing the web, taking and sharing pictures and video, playing games, watching TV and films, listening to music, reading or writing books, tweeting, blogging, listening to the radio, navigating in a car, or on a bike, or on foot, running a business, tracking the weather, following a recipe, finding recommended restaurants close by, buying hundreds of thousands of dollars of art remotely from Sotheby’s... it can all be done on a single device that fits in a pocket…
IPTV
Transcript: Over seventy years ago the first television screens warmed up to show blurry black and white images. Since then, television has changed in almost every way. Today, TV is multi-platform, which means you can watch programs on all kinds of devices from mobile phones and computer monitors, to giant LED screens in your living room…
HOW TO GET OUT OF GUANTANAMO BAY
Also created in 2011, this interactive illustrates the complex legal framework involved in processing inmates at Guantanamo Bay. Military tribunals, federal court cases, habeas corpus petitions, a change in administration, prisoner dispositions and deaths… The explainer was built to complement an ABC Radio National program on why President Barack Obama found it so difficult to fulfill a promise to close the Cuba-based prison. The graphic interface depicts a maze-like prison environment, with the information partitioned into information sequences, with links to primary sources. In this visually evocative context, the story can be taken step by step, and it becomes clear how complex the two decade old prison system is.
An Editor for Visualising Time and Events
From 2010, this project explored re-imagining timeline design, and became an influential data visualisation model employed by major media outlets, including the ABC and The Guardian.
Abstract: One of the most common forms of explaining complex issues, data and events on the web is the format of the chronology, also known as the timeline. Information, often from multiple sources and points of view, is aggregated to build context and represent events occurring in a period of time. In principal, this is a very usable format for examining a complex issue and can create a common understanding of a series of events. I was fascinated by the idea of visualising the concept of concurrence, and combining two or more time frames within one timeline; in other words, what would the simultaneous visual experience of seeing the present and the future/past bring to the experience of events in time.