Over the course of the 2016 US election season, we’ll be highlighting plenty of hardworking projects designed to make elections coverage better for all—like elex and OpenElections—but also the offbeat, playful, and experimental approaches that newsrooms can work on when the basics are under control. Our first entry in the series comes from the Guardian US interactive team, who took a moment to break down their animated results maps that debuted in last week’s Nevada caucuses and South Carolina primary.

As we did last year, we’ve asked a couple of dozen people from all around the news-nerd community to tell us about one thing—article, feature, app, tool, or something else entirely—that they loved in 2015. This week, we’re publishing their responses, from interactives to project management software. We hope you find here at least one thing that eases your work, inspires new angles on your stories, and helps carry you through to 2016.

On October 19, the Guardian published Homan Square: A Portrait of Chicago’s Detainees as a part of its ongoing investigation into the Chicago Police Department’s alleged abuses of detainee rights at a warehouse facility on Chicago’s west side. We spoke with the Guardian interactive team responsible for the interactive feature, both in their NYC offices and via email.