With mobile devices fast becoming a primary method of consuming news, data visualizations can be simple images formatted for the device they appear on. Google helping journalists make these animated data visuals, releases a new ‘Data Gif Maker’ tool, which show share of search interest for two competing topics.
Here is how the new Data Gif Maker tool works:
- Enter two data points to show search interest, just compare two terms in the Google Trends explore tool, which give an average number of search interest over time for each term. Then input those two numbers in Data Gif Maker.
- Add your text
- Choose your colors
- Choose your explanatory text
- Hit “Launch Comparisons” and “Download as Gif”
- And there — you’ve made your first animated data gif.
Here are some pro-tips for making most out of the Data Gif Maker:
The high resolution download takes longer but it’s better quality for social sharing.
Leave window open on your desktop while it’s creating the gifs as it will do so quicker.
If you want the visual, but not the gif, hit “Launch Comparisons” and it’ll open in browser window. Just hit space to advance through the views (it’s set up to show five pieces of data, one after the other).
