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Data by itself can be pretty boring.
Sure, some people find Excel spreadsheets or static charts and graphs exhilarating. For the vast majority of data consumers, though, raw data is a major snoozefest.
But data presented as a interactive, visual story? Now that's sexy.
Moving company United Van Lines needed to spice up the presentation of its annual United National Movers Study. The study shows moving trends around the United States over several decades and is shared every year with news organizations like the Associated Press. But its previous format, a static JPEG of a US map, didn't really tell a compelling story or do the data justice.
There also wasn't much in the way of attribution to United Van Lines or its parent company, Unigroup, for all of the hard work they did collecting the data. We know Midwest companies are notoriously humble, but you gotta give credit where it's due.
Luckily, the great marketing team at Unigroup, with whom we've worked several times over the last few years, knew Integrity could help them weave together an effective, interactive story.
With loads of data to reimagine and not much time to do it (four weeks, baby!), we got to work creating sketches and interactive prototypes with the client to determine how the new map should look.
Once we nailed down the design, we made the map come alive with React, Redux and the D3 JavaScript libraries. We also built the map so news outlets or bloggers can easily share it as an iframe by copying and pasting the embed code.
The result is a fun, informative and user-friendly experience. Users can play the map as an animated slideshow or control it themselves, navigating through each state and each year dating back to 1978. And there's no question as to who's behind the study, since there's a custom link to the United Van Lines website at the bottom of the map that allows them to track how many people click through to learn more.
Brands live and die on the web based on how engaging their content is. By rethinking how their data was presented, Integrity equipped United Van Lines with a piece of content that will benefit their business for years to come. It doesn't get much sexier than that.
We know how to deliver your content in ways your users will find engaging. Contact us to get started.
