SND Chicago

Immersive computing technologies offer unique storytelling challenges and opportunities for designers. What kinds of stories lend themselves to AR or VR treatment? How do we help viewers know what’s important in an environment where they control the camera? What can we do to build experiences that are safe and accessible for our audiences?

This session will highlight some of the lessons learned from 3 years of AR/VR experimentation at Knight Lab. We’ll also discuss practical tools for getting started and end with a hands-on mobile AR prototyping exercise so you can start integrating immersive media into your design practice right away.

For a long time, the ability to create powerful and dynamic web experiences rested in the hands of developers. Even something as simple as adding a call to action in the middle of an article could be a confusing process.

The recent release of the Gutenberg editor for WordPress, however, blows wide open the capability for editors themselves to create engaging content without needing to rely on unintuitive menus or painful workflows. At this talk, we will look at a few projects built by Upstatement using Gutenberg and discuss both the advantages and challenges of this new editor.

After decades of relying on in-person exit polls to help call winners and tell the story of Election Day, the Associated Press debuted a replacement in 2018: VoteCast, a new approach to election research. Developed in collaboration with NORC at the University of Chicago, one of the world’s premier academic research institutions, VoteCast is designed for an electorate that is voting early, absentee and by mail in greater numbers with each passing election.

Combing innovations in survey methodology with a massive data collection effort, VoteCast offered research on voter attitudes nationally and in all 47 states contesting statewide elections in 2018, including details about the opinions of registered voters who chose not to cast a ballot.

As part of VoteCast, AP also created systems for automating the creation of text and visual content, allowing it to provide an unprecedented level of multi-format state-by-state reporting on “why the winners won” on Election Day.

The AP team that created VoteCast will discuss why they chose to abandon exit polls, their new approach to election polling, how they expanded their visual storytelling and their plans to do more – and enable AP member newsrooms and VoteCast customers to do more – in 2020 and beyond.