The New York Times adores sliders
A month ago I wrote about the visual coverage of the US midterm elections by the New York Times. In this fascinating presentation, graphics editor Amanda Cox - AKA the Queen of InfoVis - explains some of the reasoning behind these and other Times interactives. She may be not an overwhelming speaker as Hans Rosling but here story is at least as interesting. There's a lot of absorbing stuff in the 55 minute video, but my favorite quote starts around 11’17” when she is talking about this interactive map:
We sort of adore sliders. I think sliders are the best user interface element ever in terms of a journalist. Because there's this kind of cheap way of having a story in it. There's a beginning and a middle and an end to the slider, so there's this narrative structure.
(The original presentation is no longer available online. The video below shows a similar presentation by Amanda Cox a couple of months later.)