Suchströme
Art Direction, Visualization & UI Design
Visualizing Google Search Interest in the German Election Year 2021
In this project, I took on the role of Art Director. This included concept development and creation of the key visual as well as UI and UX design of the page.
What do people in Germany google in the super election year 2021? How does the interest in relevant political topics and parties change over time? And, how does the interest in different topics compare?
Collaborators & Client
Creative Direction:
Moritz Stefaner
Code:
Matthias Stahl
Google News Initiative Team:
Isa Sonnenfeld
Leslie Leuenberger
Simon Rogers
Alberto Cairo
The project Suchströme (=search streams) reveals the top search trends on Google related to the German election 2021. In a series of interactive graphics, people can explore and compare the search interest in Germany’s major parties and current political topics.
The core idea of the project is to focus on direct comparisons to convey the excitement of a race between parties and political topics. What generates more interest in Germany, COVID-19 or sustainability, racism or unemployment? Which party is searched for more, the Green party or the CDU?
Design of the Key Visual
The key visual puts direct comparisons front and center. Two lines each show the interest in a topic over 12 months. The visual focus lies on the filled areas between the curves. They show the difference between the topics and are colored to reflect which topic is in the lead. This highlights the differences within the direct comparison, while still allowing the viewer to see the individual developments of each topic.
Different types of comparisons
In addition to comparing parties and topics against each other, Suchströme includes temporal comparisons, showing the same party over the last two election years 2017 and 2021.
This allowed us to explore questions like: How did the search interest in the major parties change compared to the last election? Who wins and who loses interest? Using the same visual numerous other comparisons can be envisioned.
For each comparison featured on the page, we also included downloads for sharing on social media, as images or video.
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Comparison of two parties
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Comparison on the last two election years
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Comparison of two topics
What did we learn?
Some trends we also saw in the media are reflected very clearly in the search interest. For example, the Green Party has gained immensely in interest this year.
However, for some parties, the search interest is pretty high in relation to their actual election results. The AfD for instance is still searched for the most, despite losing votes.
Although the FDP has improved their election result compared to the previous election, their search interest still remains low compared to other parties.
Looking at COVID related topics, people have lost interest in Lockdowns compared to the beginning of the year, while the interest in vaccines has surged.
When it comes to new technologies, Artificial Intelligence is very a popular search term. It is searched for almost as much as COVID-19 vaccination and is even more popular than Data Security.
Despite being a topic that is increasingly discussed in the media, climate is still not very much in the focus when it comes to people’s search interest. The topic Climate Change was only on the 29th place among the political topics we chose for Suchströme.
However, Sustainability or Renewable Energy are searched for more often, suggesting that people are more interested in solutions rather than the topics that relate to the problem more broadly such as Climate Change or Environmental Problems.
There is a lot more to explore! Find your own insights on Suchströme!
Impact & Coverage
Suchströme was featured on the Google Election Trends Hub as well as on Google Keyword.
Further Media Coverage:
Meedia Article
Heise Article