Why every journalist should play Dots

A short list that connects Dots and journalism

I am a journalist and I am also addicted on almost every silly game for iPhone. The last one that got me was Dots. I guess it is the simplest game I have ever played on iPhone. When I show it to my candy-crush-addicted friends they just cannot accept that you can connect two dots of the same colour (on Candy Crush you need at least three of them). "It is too easy", they say. But the thing is: you only have one minute to do that.

So, while playing that sixty seconds round, I usually think about the strangest things. One of them was a short list on why every journalist should play Dots. Here goes my reasons for journalists playing Dots.

Wired published a text about design secrets behind dots, which I found when I was looking for an image for this post.

Looking for patterns

Every story is a new story. Every profile is a new profile. But wait, they are not so unique. Journalism is about finding patterns. One of the best way to prove a point in an article is using patterns. It can be made using numbers or showing a common behaviour. Let me use an example. I write about technology and everyone is talking about Big Data now. It could be interesting if one guy started working with Big Data analytics. He would be a nice case for talking about this matter. But it could be just an isolated case. But if you can see a pattern with more and more enterprises using Bid Data to take decisions, it gives some importance to it. With this pattern in mind, you can make a better article.

Dots is all about finding patterns. If you get a little square, it will kill all dots of that colour. So, the more obsessed you get on looking for patterns, the more squares you will get. The more squares you get, higher your score. The higher your score… well, you got it.

Deal with you time

Dots gives you only 60 seconds on each round (or it used to, now there is that new mode with limited moves). You need to think as fast as you can to achieve a better score. This is a parallel to the deadline on journalism.

The ideia is the same: do the best you can before you time is up. This is a ghost that chases a lot of journalists. Some can deal better with the ideia of that moment and some just cannot and get too anxious. A good training to get comfortable with this time pressure can be really helpful.

Keep it simple

This point I usually get looking at Dots' design. While a lot of games try to be really sophisticated, Dots chooses being simple. The design, the ideia and the execution are simple. And it works fine. The same can be said about journalism and design inside journalism. Sometimes, people try to make complicated things. Some use hard words or put too much information on a page or a website. While everything that they should have in mind to attract a reader is: keep it simple.