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Elliot Bentley – Building the news: In-house tools for the newsroom
The document outlines a design proposal for a new mapping tool being built at The Wall Street Journal, including a new map template, editor, and early prototype shown with an example. It concludes with information on the open source project and a demo.
Elliot Bentley – Building the news: In-house tools for the newsroom
- 1. Building A NewMapping Tool Elliot Bentley
- 2. We <3 mapsat The Wall Street Journal
- 3. Existing web maptemplate
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Editor's Notes
- #2 Case study of building a specific tool
- #3 Huge demand for maps at WSJ Two full time cartographers based in NYC, making beautiful maps like these Specialist skill with complicated software
- #4 Existing map template Off-style Pop-ups are a bad experience for readers Frequently misused - used as pseudo-galleries Not responsive, and scrolljacking an issue
- #5 Existing map tool Fiddly, time-consuming experience for editors
- #6 Wrote up with consultation from cartographers
- #7 Split into: Leaflet-powered frontend JavaScript library, developed first... Position and features specified by JSON object WSJ style, including scale bar Mobile-friendly click-to-activate behaviour
- #8 Angular based editing tool Live preview of map - Cartographers helped define look of map and restrict options to essentials - Guerilla testing: quickstart, dragging markers
- #9 http://www.wsj.com/articles/ongoing-shooter-operation-reported-at-radisson-blu-hotel-in-mali-1448011876 Now used regularly, often as placeholders before cartographers can replace with superior map
- #10 Open sourcing took an extra week of work Extracting Journal styles and configuration Writing documentation and producing promo site