Interviewjs

InterviewJS

Make your stories engaging!


Turn interviews into shareable and embeddable interactive chats.


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How it works

InterviewJS is an open-source tool for journalists to make stories engaging. Storytellers are taken through the process of building a chat story from creating interviewee profiles to composing interactive messaging exchanges combining text, videos, maps, audio, charts or any other type of embeddable content.

The result: mobile-friendly stories in the form of an embeddable web app that enable users to engage with interviewees seemingly directly. They can be shared on social media or embedded on your website.

This is the beta version of InterivewJS. It was funded by the Digital News Innovation Fund and developed by Al Jazeera.



Examples

Here are just some examples of what you can make with InterviewJS:

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Ten tips for building the best InterviewJS story:


  1. Stories can cover any topic or debate but should be based on longform interviews.
  2. You can edit your interviews but you can never make up quotes! InterviewJS is a journalism tool and rules of journalism apply.
  3. Chose a strong issue that allows interviewees to hold different points of view.
  4. Six to seven different interviews are ideal but any number is possible.
  5. Make interviews interactive by selecting a strong quote for the messenger bubble before writing interaction that leads into the the quote.
  6. Break up interview messages frequently with user questions or interactions.
  7. Increase interactivity by embedding videos, maps, sound, and images.
  8. Experiment! You can delete messages, rearrange them, and edit text before publishing.
  9. Consider casting yourself as an interviewee who provides extra info and context.
  10. At the end, create strong feedback questions for the user by getting them to choose between different points of views exposed in the story.






Enter our competition



 

FAQ's


What is InterviewJS?
InterviewJS is a free tool made for journalists to turn interviews into shareable and embeddable interactive chats.

Who is InterviewJS for?
InterviewJS was built by journalists for journalists and newsrooms.

What do I need to get started?
Creating your first interview is easy, if you need help watch this two minute guide.

Is InterviewJS free?
Yes, it's free to use and the code is open source for anyone to contribute.

Who owns my story?
You own your story and are responsible for all of its contents.

What types of media can I include in my interview?
Text, images, videos, audio, maps and charts.

Where is my data stored?
In the cloud.

How long can my interview be?
As long as you want but keep in mind the ten tips mentioned above.

Can I add custom styling to my interviews?
Yes, by downloading the zip file and modifying the style sheets.

What is the maximum character length of a text bubble?
Questions can be any length but try to keep them short.
Answers are limited to 36 characters to encourage fast-paced conversations.

Which phones does InterviewJS work on?
Any smartphone with a web browser. This includes most Android, Apple and Windows phones.

Do I need to download any software?
No, the entire application is online.

What languages does it support?
Currently English is the primary language. If you're interested in helping us extend this capability please contact interviewjs@aljazeera.net

Does InterviewJS access my Facebook messenger, Whatsapp or any other programme on my phone?
No, not at all.

What do you do with the the information from the poll at the end?
Nothing, the polling information is only used to aggregate the results.

What if I want to build a fictional story?
You can, but InterviewJS is meant to be a journalism tool and rules of journalism should apply.

How long does it take to make an interview?
It depends on the length of your interview. We designed it to allow you to convert interviews within a matter of minutes.

Who developed InterviewJS?
It was funded by the Digital News Initiative Fund and developed by Al Jazeera.

How many interviewees can I include?
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Will my interviews be picked up by search engines?
Yes, the web application includes all the necessary information for search engines to index.

What web browsers does InterviewJS support?
All modern web browsers.

Can I embed an interview into my website?
Yes, after you finish building your story, grab the embed code and paste into your content management system (CMS).

How can I contribute to InterviewJS?
Visit our github page here: https://github.com/AJInteractive/InterviewJS