{"id":5332,"date":"2021-09-30T13:01:29","date_gmt":"2021-09-30T11:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.everviz.com\/blog\/?p=5332"},"modified":"2022-12-05T21:07:19","modified_gmt":"2022-12-05T21:07:19","slug":"casestudy-dn-live-election-graphics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everviz.com\/blog\/casestudy-dn-live-election-graphics\/","title":{"rendered":"Case study – How Dagens N\u00e6ringsliv used everviz for live election data visualizations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The national parliamentary election in Norway is just around the corner. Dagens N\u00e6ringsliv (DN), The Norwegian Business Daily, a leading business newspaper in Norway used everviz to convert live election data into beautiful visualizations to engage their readers.  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We talked to Frode Buanes, Head of Digital Publishing at DN, to learn more about the project. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He starts with setting some expectations:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Covering an election is probably one of the most important and busiest events that a newsroom needs to handle. Every newsroom competes in delivering content first while the votes are being counted, and the readers expect high quality content.”<\/em><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Project initiation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The digital publishing team at DN reached out to the everviz team about three weeks before the election to discuss how to use everviz to visualize election data. They knew that their coverage of the election must include visualizations. The readers are used to, and expect high quality visual presentations providing a good overview of the standings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We sat down to talk about needs and possible solutions. Some of the visualizations that should be included were: Which party or candidate is in the lead, what is the prognosis for a specific region, which coalition possibilities are realistic and where is a particular party the dominant one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feeding charts with live data was essential for this project since manual updating of the charts would require a lot of manpower and would delay getting information to the readers. The data had to be accurate and the charts should present the results in a clear and beautiful way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goals summarized<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After some initial brainstorming sessions, we agreed on the following goals for the election graphics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • All visualizations must be updated automatically in real time. There is no room for manual updates as the vote data is coming in many times per minute. 

    <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Over 60% of the traffic comes from mobile devices and all graphics need to automatically scale to the reader\u2019s device. 

    <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Election night is probably the one of the busiest times in terms of viewers, so the visualizations need to handle a substantial amount of traffic.

    <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • All the visualizations need to be on brand for the DN profile, such as colors, fonts, positioning etc.  

    <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Since the graphics are being updated frequently, it is important to show the timestamp and number of votes counted in the visualizations. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The plan was to present visualizations in rolling articles on the front page of DN.no  and in print media during the days following the election. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Getting creative<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    After setting some initial goals, it was time to get the DN team up and running in everviz. They received some initial training on how to create charts, how they could apply DN brand into their graphics and how to connect visualizations to live data sources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The team said that they really enjoyed this process as they became more familiar with all the power in the everviz tool. One of the graphic experts in the DN team said that he had been using other charting tools on the market previously, but never seen one which could easily adjust the look and feel to his exact needs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In parallel, a data journalist at DN started working on the live data feeds that would serve as an endpoint to the visualizations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    After a few days of experimenting they came up with with the following charts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Latest polls<\/h3>\n\n\n\n