“We used Tableau because we had no programmer” says @PauGuisado at #dhplus .This sentence is becoming a #ddj mantra.

— daniele grasso (@danielegrasso) May 9, 2014

What is Tableau?

Tableau Public is free software which allows you to visualize data in many ways and create all kinds of maps, charts and graphs (and there are pay versions of Tableau too). A great function of Tableau is the ability to put multiple data sets together into a so-called “Dashboard”, which among other things, allows the filtering of results. This is one of the software’s strengths because it lets you analyze the data in more detail. For example, in the visualization I produced below of net energy imports, you can click on a particular year and a particular region to see how energy use is changing.

How can journalists use Tableau?

Unlike several other web-based services, you need to download and install the software onto your computer (only available for Windows). You then open up your data and drag and drop to create different types of charts or maps. Then you can upload the results publicly to the web. You can then embed the visualizations in your own website or easily share it via social media.

Is Tableau easy to learn?

In short, yes. But I recommend that you first take a look at this helpful introductory video:

By following the steps in the video, it should be quite straightforward to start creating basic visualizations. But if you want to do more complicated work, you’ll probably have to take some additional time to play around and explore all the software’s features. It took me a few hours to create the visualization shown above, but this also included time spent cleaning up and arranging the World Bank data in Excel (if you would like to have a go at doing this on your own, look at my spreadsheet on Google Drive).

Advantages

Apart from the introductory video above, many other great tutorial videos are available. Some data journalists advise you to visualize your data in as many ways as possible so you don’t miss any patterns. This is simple with Tableau – once you have uploaded your data, it suggests appropriate visualizations methods. The filters are easy to add and you can configure them so that they are interactive. Everything is highly customizable: you can change colors, alter fonts and adjust text sizes just as needed. All this is done offline. Once you’ve installed Tableau you can start working on your computer. The internet is only required when you save your project to the web.

Disadvantages

Tableau is however not as intuitively hands-on as Datawrapper. I tried to start using Tableau straight after installing the program, but quickly realized that I’ll have to watch some how-to-videos. Another con is that once you’ve uploaded your data set, you cannot refine it within the program. You would have to change it within the spreadsheet itself and then upload it again. Though it is great to have many ways to customize your visualization, it is not always that easy to do. I found it time consuming to set the right color steps for my map or to choose the boundaries of the scale within a sheet, for example. Another annoyance was that sometimes when I dragged and dropped elements to the Dashboard, they didn’t drop where I wanted them to and I had to spend time reorganizing the elements. It means you better sit back for a moment to think of what you want your final structure to look like to avoid frustration (get some tips on this here).

Upshot

All these cons would not keep me from using Tableau. It is an interesting tool with a great variety of options. For simple graphics I would still use the Datawrapper. But for more sophisticated visualizations, I would go for Tableau – simply because then you can explore your data in more ways and put all your graphics together neatly in order to tell a multifaceted story.

For some more examples of what Tableau Public can do, take a look here.

Written by guest author, Gianna Grün.

Gianna Grün is a science journalist with a penchant for data. She works for Global Ideas, Deutsche Welle’s multimedia magazine on biodiversity and climate protection. She also has her own blog, where – among other things – she writes about what’s going on in the data world and takes data tools for a test drive (in English and in German). And in case you prefer to read German, here’s her German post on Tableau.

What is Steller?

Steller is a free storytelling app developed by Mombo Labs. It allows you to create multimedia stories directly on your iPhone or iPod touch by adding photos, videos and text. After several months in beta, Steller was made available in March on Apple’s App Store.

The number of people using the web on their mobile devices is ever growing. Moreover, newsrooms are realizing that not only do they have to be digital first, but they also have to produce content that can be consumed on a small screen. It’s interesting to see how apps such as Steller are focused on producing multimedia stories optimized to be consumed on mobile devices only.

Simple start

When you first open the app and click on “collections” you’ll find a variety of stories created with Steller. Plenty of stories have also been published on the social network Pinterest. Most of them look quite appealing as all Steller stories transmit the sense of literally browsing through pages of a booklet full of multimedia content.

Another thing that comes to mind while opening Stellar on your iPhone or iPod touch is its similarity to the iPad storytelling app Storehouse. Both Steller and Storehouse offer a simple and user-friendly design. The Steller user interface is self-explanatory and the app provides useful visual hints while creating your multimedia story. Once downloaded, you have to sign up for a free Steller account or you can log in with your Facebook account. Then you are ready to start your first project.

We decided to create a test Steller story with three different kinds of media – text, photos and video. In our story about a Pakistani man called Imran Mehr, we wanted to combine four short videos, text and some pictures of Imran. Once we clicked on “post a new story”, Stellar offered us three options: Add text, add a video or photo.

One page – one medium

Each page of this “digital multimedia booklet” represents basically one medium. We decided to start with a title page, so we needed to pick the option “text”. Once we made our decision, we could choose between eight different text templates. They all differ from their designs. They allow you, for example, to change font and layout. The same applied while adding our videos: Steller provides twelve different options (video with a title in the center, video with a text box on the bottom, etc.). Also the text option offers a variety of styles (big letters, small letters, font color, etc.).

Logical workflow, easy publishing

The work flow within Steller is always the same. After choosing whether to first post text, a video or a photo, you can select between several layout templates and then adjust your photo or video by selecting and dragging the elements with your fingers. Once you are done with one page, you can simply add another page by tapping on the icon at the bottom of the right corner. Page by page you gradually produce your story. If you make a mistake, you can easily go back and edit the content. Of course, like any multimedia story, it’s good to sketch out a plan first.

When you’re ready to publish, Steller lets you distribute your story on its own network and as well on other social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.

Some drawbacks with typing text and video files

Steller is user friendly and easy to start. It took only about 20 minutes to get used to its interface and to get to know its options. The project itself was finished within a few hours (production time for the videos not included of course).

Nevertheless, there are some drawbacks in the current version. Steller does not allow the user to add audio files. We had a range of audio files we wanted to use but had to rely on video, text and pictures only. And you can not combine multiple media on one page. Steller only allows combining text with videos or text with pictures. It’s not possible to add a video and a picture or two videos on one page.

Writing a long story on an iPhone is also a challenge because it takes time typing on the small visual keyboard. Text import options are not yet available. Dictating text via the iPhone’s microphone and voice recognition system might work better but you have to be connected to the internet.

Then there’s video. The frame size is vertical. For viewers who are used to turning an iPhone horizontally to watch a video, the vertical layout might feel strange.

Last but not least the size of a multimedia story is limited to 10MB only. That means if you’re working with videos it’s very easy to exceed the 10 MB. In our project we had to delete two videos and shorten the duration of the other two we wanted to use (which by the way were all around one minute long). Steller did not mention its size limit on its homepage, so it was quite frustrating to get the notification “Story too large. This story exceeds the maximum size” after hitting the publishing icon.

What else should journalists know about Steller?

Steller is definitely an easy to use app that supports a quick workflow with remarkable results and offers a clear focus on mobile devices. Steller might work best for picture-driven stories attracting the more “visual reader” on a quick commute who likes to be entertained by a short, but visually appealing story.

Cost: free on Apple’s App Store. It’s optimized for iPhone and iPod touch running iOS 7.0 or later. Not available for Android.

Publishing: Steller only publishes your project within its own network and you can share via other social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. You can not embed in a blog.

Support: Users can log on to their help & support page and it’s also possible to write an email directly to support@mombo.com.

Languages: The Steller interface is currently only in English.

Author: Daniela Späth

Audio slideshows can be an engaging part of any multimedia package. They’ve got the strength and appeal of photography while the narration adds the power of the human voice, giving context and filling in details that the images might not otherwise provide.

One of the problems in the past was finding good tools to create them. For years, SoundSlides has been the standard but it costs between $40 and $70 and the learning curve, while not Himalayan steep, is a little uphill at first.

Now there are several tools out there that allow you to put together basic audio slideshows in a snap and on the fly, and they won’t break the bank. Sonic Pics for iPhones or iPads is a low-cost one that’s impressive. It’s easy to use, has a simple, clean interface and pretty much does what it promises.

A few simple steps

With Sonic Pics, you choose pictures from your photo library, put them in the order you want and then record audio as you swipe through them. Presto, you’ve got an audio slideshow that you can share with the world or just watch on your device.

After a $2.99 download from iTunes, I decided to give the app a test drive by using some pictures I had taken for a story on rural sanitation and toilets in Cambodia.

Starting a new project, the app asked me for a name and description. Once that was done, I found myself on the screen where I would add the photos.

A touch of + Add Images allowed me to scroll through the photos on my phone. I picked out nine, then realized I wanted them in a different order. Not to worry. Sonic Pics lets you to change the order by dragging them to whatever position you want. Here you can also add a title and image description to each picture, which can be displayed during playback on your device if you want.

That done, the next step is to add the audio. A touch of the red button on the upper right-hand corner opens a screen that puts your first photo front and center. Tap on a red button again, and you’re recording.

Say what you want to say (and it’s a good idea to have a few notes in front of you unless you’re very good at speaking off the cuff). When you’ve finished talking about one photograph, simply swipe it to the left and the next one comes up, and you can start the narration for that one. Sonic Pics remembers which parts of your narration go with which photo. There’s no more need for complicated timing or separate audio imports. It’s all done within the app.

Once you’re done, touch on a share button and the app will ask if you want to save what you’ve done or delete it and start again. I was happy enough, so I saved it.

Then you can touch the share icon again and either send the audio slideshow to your computer (it will give you an IP address which allows you to download a .m4v video file to your computer), send it by email, save it to your own phone’s camera roll or send it to a YouTube account. That’s what I did and you can see the results below. All in all, this audio slideshow took me under ten minutes to make. (Of course, I already had the pictures and I knew the story so I could write up my narration quickly.)

A few drawbacks

I was pretty impressed with the speed that I was able to put together a decent enough audio slideshow and share it successfully in multiple ways. But there’s some room for improvement.

For one, activating the built-in camera that allows you to take pictures from the image addition screen crashed the app every time I tried to use it. It’s not a fatal flaw since I was using photos from my camera roll but one that should be fixed.

Email sharing only allows projects that come in under 10MB, and you’ll reach that size quickly. My project with 9 slides at 1’53” was 23 MB.

Also, there is no way to go in and re-record narration for one single slide, for example if you stumbled over a sentence and wanted to re-do the audio for that slide only. If you want to re-record, you have to re-record it all. That can be a hassle if you have a lot of slides or trip over your words a lot, like me.

Finally, there’s no way to import music to lay down under narration or do any kind of audio mix. You need to be pretty close to your device’s microphone and speaking in a quiet environment to get decent sound quality.

Overview

Cost: $2.99 from iTunes. Once you buy it, you can use on both your iPhone and iPad.

Publishing: Share over a wifi network with your own computer, upload it to YouTube, save it to your own device or email it (if project is no bigger than 10 MB). Using a video out connection, you can also present the shows on bigger screens.

Support: The website isn’t all that extensive, although they do list an email address for support questions: support@sonicpics.com.

Languages: The Sonic Pics interface is in English.

General Opinion: For basic audio slid shows, especially for people just starting out with them, this is a nice little app. Even out in the field, you can still put together a package in no time that you can send back to your editors or put up on your site. For those with more experience or who want to use image fades or music and more complicated audio mixes, Sonic Pics might prove a little too basic.

Author: Kyle James

But what about the humble monopod?

From getting a high shot over a crowd to supporting a camera, a monopod is one of the most useful tools that should be in your kit bag.

And whether you’re working with a camcorder, a digital camera or a smarthphone, read on to find out more about using a monopod and adapting it to your filming needs.

What is a monopod?

As an extendable pole with a standard camera mount, monopods don’t really come in vastly different shapes, but more in different sizes.

Monopods are lightweight and usually made from either of carbon fiber or aluminium. Typically the monopod has four or five sections that extend like an antenna or telescope and lock off by twisting or with a lever.

All monopods will have at least the standard 1/4-20 screw to mount a camera or camcorder. This will also give you the option of adding a ball head to tilt or rotate the camera.

If you are intending to use your monopod for video work then it would be worth investing in a good fluid head to attach to your monopod.

Take a look at this introductory video from Lynda tutorials to see more.

Standing tall

Ideally a good professional monopod usually extends to least 170-180 cm which should put a camera, smartphone or camcorder in the range of most people’s eye level.

That’s important for photographers and particularly videographers who might be using monopods to record an interview.

Shorter but just as good

Shorter monopods might not stand as tall as their big brothers, but that doesn’t mean they can’t do the same work.

If you are standing and need your camera to work at eye level, say for an interview, you could simply place the monopod on a chair or table to increase the working height.

Or, you could use a clip-on pouch on a belt which will means you’re starting from around waist height.

A shorter monopod also has the advantage of being lighter and more compact for carrying around.

Using a monopod

The monopod offers you much improved stability over hand held and it’s one of those tools that can be easily adapted to your style of photography or filming to achieve a variety of shots.

Monopod as shoulder spar

Here are some ideas to get started.

Go high – extend your camera above crowds to film over people’s heads.

Hold it steady – support from the ground up to avoid shaky sore arms when filming.

Hand held support – even when collapsed, a monopod offers a simple way of making a camera steady. Try using the monopod as a basic steadycam support.

Shoulder support – with a ball head, a DSLR or camcorder can be tilted back 90 degrees so a monopod can be used as spar to rest on your shoulder, or try tucking the monopod under your arm.

Look at me – VJ’s or mobile journalists can use a monopod for a quick and steady piece to camera. Adjust the monopod and camera to your required height and hold the monopod at arm’s length from you.

For more ideas and shooting tips with monopods, check out this tutorial from the Vimeo Video School.

Monopod Mania from Vimeo Video School on Vimeo.

What else should I know about monopods?

Costs: There are dozens of monopods of all sizes to suit every budget: from 30 – 300 Euro.

Variations: Here a couple of different types of monopods or camera supports to consider.

Manfrotto and Benro produce professional monopods that not only feature a fluid head to mount a camcorder or DLSR but retractable feet – effectively turning the monopod into something like a tripod that can stand up right on its own and support smaller cameras.

And for something completely different, check out the Ballpod.

Filled with a bean-like filler, this silicon bag is not a really a monopod but great variation of a camera bag support. It can be shaped to make a stable support on uneven surfaces or cramped spaces to support either a small DSLR camera or something else such as a LED light.

Author: Guy Degen

Add extra layers of information to images by adding links.

Thinglink lets you embed “tags” – hyperlinks and text – into images. If you have a great photograph or image you can add a link to another photo, or a website, or video clip, or audio clip – literally anything. It’s a very useful tool for creating simple pieces of interactive media to compliment a story or to use as a basic story platform. This tool is always a winner with participants in online journalism workshops. As we roll our mouse over a “tag” revealing a link to another piece of media, there is usually a collective “Aha!” from participants. And if you’re a regular reader of onMedia, you’ve probably noticed that we like to use this tool a lot.

In a much cited example here in Germany, the Berliner Morgenpost used ThingLink very effectively with a photograph of the White House Situation Room during the raid on Osama bin Laden’s hideout. The icons identify who was in the room and provide relevant links.

ThingLink is used by a number of leading media houses in different ways. For example, take a look at how the Washington Post uses ThingLink for interactive frontpages.

How can journalists use ThingLink?

Open up a newspaper or magazine and you’ll often see that print media uses the classic technique of pointing to objects within an image to identify them for readers, or to perhaps offer a brief explanation of their purpose.

With ThingLink you can do the same, and more. Simply press “Create” and upload an image to the site in JPEG or PNG format.

Once an image is uploaded, the ThingLink “Editor” dashboard opens and allows you to add an “icon” to the image for users to roll over or click on. You can simply add text the “Description” box and/or add a hyperlink to more content.

There is also “Search” bar to find relevant links to media hosted on YouTube, Vimeo, Soundcloud, Amazon and Etsy.

Take a look at the example below we produced for a blog post on mobile journalism equipment.

Earlier this year ThingLink released a free iPhone application making an interesting app for journalists to produce interactive media on the road.

Within your account, ThingLink also provides useful statistics for your image.

What else should journalists know about ThingLink?

Image sizes: ThingLink scales images down to 1024px. The largest file you can upload is 25MB. If you upload an image less than 130x130px then the editor will not open.

And don’t forget, you can also upload GIFs.

Cost: Free. Publishers can opt for an upgrade version.

Sharing: You can embed ThingLink images and there are options to share to blogs and social media networks including: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Edmodo, Google+, Pinterest. This blog post from ThingLink also lets you see how tags from a range of media will display on an image.

ThingLink images also play directly in Twitter and Facebook timelines.

Languages: According to their FAQ’s, ThingLink is available several languages including: English, Finnish, German, Russian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese and Hindi.

Author: Guy Degen