If you’re looking for an innovative way to tell stories and engage your audience, then scrollytelling is the answer. Scrollytelling is a relatively new storytelling technique that combines the power of storytelling with the convenience of scrolling. It is an engaging and interactive way to tell stories that captures the attention of readers and a great tool for creative science communication. In this blog we’ll show you some examples of what it can look like.
Scrollytelling helps science communicators tell a story in a way that is both informative and entertaining.
What is scrollytelling?
Scrollytelling is a form of storytelling that uses interactive elements to tell a story. As the name implies, the story unfolds as the reader scrolls down a page. And you can combine it with other interactive elements such as videos, animations, and questions. We love to use this type of storytelling to explain complex topics in an engaging and easily digestible way.
A combination of scrolling and storytelling
When we work on the science communication of a research project, we usually write a script to tell the story of the research. We can use this script in our infographics and social media carousels. But telling a story in an interactive website is by far our favorite way to engage the audience.
By using animations, movements and little dialogues, you can involve your audience in the narrative and convey your information in a fun way. And we love putting smiles on people’s faces.
If you’re looking for an engaging way to communicate a complex topic, scrollytelling might be the perfect solution.
Case: Short course on manipulation
For the Korte cursus manipulatie (in English: Short course on manipulation) we used fun illustrations to illustrate the key points of the story and animations to bring the story to life. This helps keep the reader engaged and encourages them to keep scrolling and learn about the topic of online manipulation by social media.
Case: A future without manipulation
This EU campaign we created for the Greens/EFA in the European Parliament, is an interactive scrollytelling website combined with pop-up windows. You are encouraged to click and interact with the website. This helps to get the message across and to have people remember it long after they’ve seen it.
Case: Drive smoke free
For the researchers at Erasmus MC, we’ve created a social media campaign called RijRookvrij (Drive smoke free) with an infographic. In the same style, we created a scrollytelling website so we have a place that we can refer back to and add a list of references. Using parallax movement, we talk about the necessity for smoke-free cars for the health of children in the Netherlands.
As you’ve seen, scrollytelling is a powerful tool that can help science communicators create compelling stories that capture the attention of their audience. If you want to create a scrollytelling website for your research, get in touch!
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