What is privilege?

This is a question which BuzzFeed's Daysha Edewi explored through an interactive exercise. Participants were arranged in a line and then asked to take steps forward or back depending on their answers to a set of statements, such as:

•  If the primary language spoken in your household growing up was not English, take one step back

Or

• If you would never think twice about calling the police when trouble occurs, take one step forward.  (Full set here)

At the end, the group of 10 individuals found themselves distributed through the room with, predictably, a white man at the front and a black woman at the back.

The participants found it an intense, emotional experience and I'm not surprised: the result is a powerful visualisation of some of the hardest things to talk about in society.

"We were all joking around at the start but as soon as the questions started coming in the mood shifted immediately and it was just silent," said one.

Another commented: "It's weird how you want to hold on to explaining a certain privilege 'Oh but that's not actually me because I had to work really hard for that'."

I liked this idea and treatment. Although it was only 10 people and clearly not "data", it is a thought-provoking visualisation and a reminder that behind all human statistics are real people.

The production values work well, I like the text over video and the overlapping audio build-up of the questions.

However, it raises some editorial difficulties for news, among them "Who sets the statements? Who gets to decide what is defined as privilege?".

The video is part of Buzzfeed Yellow which describes itself as "tasty short, fun, inspiring, funny, interesting videos from the BuzzFeed crew".

It reminds me of the format of the award-winning Like a Girl campaign from Always.

Local government cuts visualised

Huge amount of work over at the FT must have gone into this report by Sally Gainsbury & Sarah Neville and interactive feature by John Burn-Murdoch on where local government cuts have fallen since 2009.

Looking at my own area of Ealing, adult social care and children's services have been particularly heavily hit.

I like the use of the middle 50% of councils as the benchmark, it gives context. At first glance I felt that the page was too samey and it frustrated me to have to read each title to see what the chart was.

But as I became used to it, I realised that the repetition of form was a benefit because once I had grasped it, I could easily compare all the numbers. If you use different types of chart then the audience has to work each time to understand the framework.

However, I do think some icons or other visual cues to what each chart was about could have helped to cut down on the title-reading.

In praise of simplicity

Photo: David Gilkey

I'm a big fan of simplicity in presentation, it requires confidence and usually means that the concept is strong rather than woolly. I've seen some good examples recently, including this beautifully-produced piece from NPR.

Reporter Rebecca Hersher and photographer David Gilkey spent a month embedded with the Afghan army and used the end of their trip to visit a school.

There, they asked the children - and in particular the girls - about their hopes for the future, what they would like to be when they grow up: the normal stuff of childhood all over the world. The girls had big dreams, to be a brain surgeon, a doctor, even the president.

I love the lightness of touch and the way they have let the children's personalities shine through.

Photo: David Gilkey