Scrolling into the Newsroom

In recent years, scrollytelling – a method to animate content as a reader scrolls through an article – has become an integral part of online visual storytelling. Despite its popularity, few studies have examined the variety of existing scrollytelling techniques. In addition, scrollytelling is still costly to produce. This study aims to generate a scrollytelling vocabulary for newsrooms and creative agencies. By analysing 50 examples, we have identified granular characteristics of scrollytelling elements, or ‘scrollers’, and grouped them into five standard techniques: graphic sequences, animated transitions, panning and zooming, scrolling through movies, and showing and auto-playing animated content. The study provides information designers, developers, and visual journalists with a vocabulary to experiment with different scrollytelling techniques and implement scrollers faster and more easily.