Americans are well acquainted with the superhighways that crisscross the United States. But most of them may not realise that highway construction has resulted in disastrous consequences for several communities. 

NBC’s interactive journalism reveals such destruction in detail, using video, audio and animation to capture your attention from the get-go.

The grumbling roar of traffic provides steady background audio as you read about the decimation of the 15th ward of Syracuse and Tremé and the 7th ward of New Orleans in the name of progress, while interactive maps help you visualise the rampant demolition. Each element helps tie the piece together to form a genuinely moving article.

Stan Crooke grew up dirt poor but dreamed of a better life. Hope lies in dreams is a visual story that captures his mesmerizing struggle to escape poverty and eventually build one of the first pharmaceutical companies to bring antisense drugs to the market. 

His story is no Cinderella tale. Rather, it is one of grinding hard work and dedication towards an admirable goal. Viewers will devour Brady Huggett’s audio narration — interspersed with spoken quotes by Crooke himself — with rapt attention as Crooke’s story unfolds before them. 

Each 40+ minute audio chapter of “Hope lies in dreams” draws you in more; by the time it reaches its momentous conclusion, you’ll feel like Crooke’s personal champion, rooting for him to succeed against the odds.

The Hoarder’s Treasure opens with the option to listen to the story as a podcast, allowing you to follow along while scrolling through the written text and absorbing the striking images. As the narrative unfolds, we learn about Philip Wright, the reclusive hoarder and owner of an old house in Christchurch, New Zealand.

When he died in 2015, a local antique dealer began cataloging and selling his belongings, the most exciting of which was an original typescript of famed New Zealand author Janet Frame’s Owls Do Cry.
Video, uncompromising photographs of the dilapidated property and various artistic renderings of the characters involved add a striking visual element that keeps you hooked until the last line.

Virginia Gardiner, CEO of RELX, started the RELX Environmental Challenge to reward innovation around sustainable sanitation and drinking water practices. She chose to portray the contest’s history, critical mission and winners through interactive content to bring the story of this massive undertaking to life. 

Stylised images fade into video in several Mondrianesque layouts, which help convey the passion behind the contest participants’ efforts. You’ll drink in images and clips of previous winners as you scroll through, flanked by droplets rippling into water that break up the text describing each project.

The contest itself incites emotion, but the stimulating visual and audio elements truly deliver the sentiment and dedication behind it.

The Bundestag is the German federal parliament comprised of elected MPs. While the MPs are supposed to represent the interests of their constituents, some people are questioning whether it truly represents all demographic groups of the German population.

Dem deutschen Volke employs interactive content such as scroll-triggered animation to depict how some seem to be under and overrepresented. Lawyers, for one, are grossly overrepresented in the Bundestag, while the under-30’s and those born before 1939 are largely underrepresented, despite comprising a large part of the German people. 

Short, punchy blocks of text accompany illustrations of the Bundestag MPs as a group to underscore the imbalance between elected officials and the population groups they are paid to advocate for. The interactive piece also includes quotes from respected professionals for credibility and visual spark.

With a story like something out of an Indiana Jones movie, The lost tablet and the secret documents immediately seizes your attention with a video clip of alleged Russian Wagner mercenaries in Libya. 

Throughout, viewers are treated to animated visuals of the actual tablet overlaid with maps, photographs of alleged Wagner operatives and documents that link the paramilitary group to assumed financiers. The scrollytelling format continues to unveil new information, keeping readers riveted until the end.

When the United States completed its withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, the tormented nation descended into chaos. As a result, Afghans fled the country in droves. 

However, escaping from their homeland was no easy feat. Escape from Afghanistan uses interactive content to outline their options for exiting the country, employing animation activated by scrolling to visualise what refugees would encounter (e.g. treacherous mountains, desert terrain, imposing chain-link fences topped with barbed wire and patrolled by armed guards, and more) with each route. 

The interactive piece admirably communicates the immense difficulty of leaving Afghanistan and lays bare the depths of the desperation people suffer as they willingly risk their lives rather than live under the suffocating rule of the Taliban.

This digital matchday program explodes with vivid imagery, videos and anecdotes that give Manchester City's many fans a peek behind the scenes of women’s club football. Personal notes from Manchester City Women team captain and head coach Gareth Taylor are superimposed over stunning photographs, and the piece includes snapshots of the players posing with their cuddly animal friends in celebration of World Animal Day. 

Clips from Kiera Walsh’s first goal for the Club and highlights of the Women’s FA Cup are just a few of the engaging elements that will keep viewers scrolling until the end.

A Marketer’s Guide to Twitch from Amazon and Adweek includes bold, stylistic animations and full-screen videos to convey information that would otherwise be considered mundane. The constant movement throughout evokes a sense of excitement and energy—which is exactly how Twitch wants you to feel about advertising on its platform. 

Viewers will learn about the Twitch creator community, the audience that consumes the content, and even slang to help them navigate the platform. This piece of native advertising turns learning about an advertising opportunity into an engaging work of art.

COVID-19 has forced people to think creatively when it comes to connecting with others. Digital interactions are now commonplace and, despite their limitations, possess distinct advantages (most notably their flexibility). 

As Australia went into lockdown, the Sydney Opera House seized the opportunity to create a couple of online escape rooms (traditionally in-person games where a group has to solve puzzles together to “escape”), the most recent of which is The Disappearing Act. It proved wildly popular with people worldwide, racking up 10,000 attempts to “escape” within the first two weeks. 

The interactive puzzles would have been eye-wateringly expensive to create years ago, but they can be produced with relative ease thanks to new content platforms like Shorthand.