Juxtapose

Improving a Storytelling Tool

Juxtapose helps storytellers compare two pieces of similar media, including photos, and GIFs. It’s ideal for highlighting then/now stories that explain slow changes over time (growth of a city skyline, regrowth of a forest, etc.) or before/after stories that show the impact of single dramatic events (natural disasters, protests, wars, etc.). This popular tool could be more useful to storytellers and web-makers if it had a couple of key features that have come up in user feedback. Auto aligning images and animated GIF social sharing are two features that would be of great improvements.

Faculty and Staff Leads

Zach Wise

Associate Professor

Emmy winning interactive producer & Associate Professor @NorthwesternU, @KnightLab. Formerly of The New York Times. Creator of TimelineJS & StoryMapJS

Joe Germuska

Chief Nerd

Joe runs Knight Lab’s technology, professional staff and student fellows. Before joining us, Joe was on the Chicago Tribune News Apps team. He is the founder of CensusReporter.org, and a proud board member of City Bureau.

Project Details

2019 Winter

Important Questions
  • What is the best way to provide auto-alignment of two similar images in a web editor?
  • What technology would allow us to provide a simple animated GIF for sharing on social media?
  • How can we improve the UX to make it even easier to create a comparison of two images?
  • If a popular use-case for the tool is satellite imagery, should we provide a way to easily source those images from different time periods?
  • How can we improve the responsive layout under the constraints of an iFrame embed?
Outcome

Deploy a new improved version of Juxtapose while not breaking older existing embeds.

Students

Melissa Hovanes