Scrollytelling
スクロールテリング / 2012– / Layout / Reading on the Web
A web page form in which the reader's scroll position is the clock of the story, with graphics, maps and video changing as the page moves and reversing when the reader scrolls back. Visualization researchers treat it as the web equivalent of long form journalism and describe its structure as either linear or elastic, the elastic kind letting a reader dive deeper on demand. News outlets including the New York Times, the BBC and The Economist built the form out.
A graphic that holds still on screen while a single narrow column of text passes over it / Changes made by opacity and by moving a map, so that scrolling back undoes them in the same order / Photography, video and data visualization sharing one article / A path that is either straight through or branches into an optional deeper detour and returns
Dictionary entry
- Best used for
- Laying out an investigation or a research explainer as one page where the graphic holds and only the text moves · Giving a long read on a phone a way to advance that needs no instructions
- Type
- Keep the body in one column. The scroll sets the pace, not the page, so hold the measure narrow and place headings only at joints in the story.
- Composition
- Pin the graphic and let the text pass over it. How many paragraphs you assign to one graphic is the pacing.
- Material
- Build only changes that can run backwards, such as opacity crossfades and map moves, each tied one to one with scroll distance.
- Caution
- Tying a one shot animation to the scroll leaves a reader who scrolls back looking at nothing, and makes the middle of the article impossible to reread.
- Further study
- 一本道の筋と伸縮式の筋の違い、そして伸縮式で読者が戻ってくる仕組み / 図版1つに割り当てる本文の量と、読み終わるまでの時間の関係 / 地図の移動を送りの量と結び、両方向で成立させる作り方
Related entries
Cite this entry
The dictionary is meant to be linked to. Take whichever form fits where you are writing.
- Link
- https://indexstyle.org/styles/scrollytelling
- Markdown
- [Scrollytelling — IndexStyle](https://indexstyle.org/styles/scrollytelling)
- HTML
- <a href="https://indexstyle.org/styles/scrollytelling">Scrollytelling — IndexStyle</a>