The Australian election map has been lying to you by ABC News Digital Storytelling team

Election maps have failed to provide an accurate, clear view of the true state of the Australian political landscape — due to the distortions of geography and the way our system works.

So we redesigned the map.

But this wasn't a case of redrawing the map for the sake of it; it was all in the service of helping people better understand the 2022 federal election.

The redesign was only possible due to the cross-disciplinary skills and deep political knowledge of the team's journalists, designers and developers, who created a 'hex' map which gave the audience a powerful new insight into how our politics really works.

The audience impact was immediate: their feedback reveals how this one editorial innovation helped people understand the world in a whole new way.

"Thanks ABC for this brilliant map. At 65 I now understand — this article has answered all my questions, which have been brewing these past 4 decades or so."

"It is not only a novel idea to present seats in the hexagonal format but such a representation has given me a different perspective that gave me a better understanding."

"A stunning piece of work that may recalibrate your mental model of the political shape of the nation."

"Possibly the best piece of visual communication I have ever seen."

"It is not only a novel idea to present seats in the hexagonal format but such a representation has given me a different perspective that gave me a better understanding."

The elegant final product is deceiving in its simplicity: creating the hex map was a complicated process requiring a detailed understanding of the Australian political system, alongside design nous and a cycle of serious feedback and iteration. The map started as a detailed pencil sketch, and the team needed to think through how to manage the trade-offs between keeping the geography of the country recognisable while staying true to the purpose of the new map.

To help the audience orient itself and understand the new map, Story Lab used scroll-based animation triggers to highlight and transform key elements. The accompanying text was conversational and inviting in tone; it was crucial to make the audience feel comfortable as we stepped them through complex democratic concepts as well as newly conceived data visualisation techniques.

Design and innovation in journalism is too often seen as being all about 'bells and whistles' added to stories. In this case, by re-imagining the centrepiece of so much election coverage, ABC News Story Lab helped Australians better understand their democracy in a way no other piece of journalism could.

And having helped the audience come to that understanding ahead of the election, the team were able to quickly use the same map to also help Australians understand the result:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-22/election-how-labor-anthony-albanese-won/101087904

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-20/federal-election-map-lying/101076016

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-22/election-how-labor-anthony-albanese-won/101087904

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-25/election-results-maps-capital-cities/101091036