Narrative Visualization: Telling Stories with Data Authors: Edward Segel and Jeffrey Heer Tim Ahn ANLY 503

Introduction Past Current Static visualizations have been used to support storytelling Diagrams Charts Text conveys the story, and the image provides supporting evidence or related details Current New visualization classes attempt to combine narratives with interactive graphics Crafting “data stories” requires a diverse set of skills “…melding the skills of computer science, statistics, artistic design and storytelling.” -The Economist

Related Work Narrative Structure Visual Narratives People have tried to understand and formalize the elements of storytelling Strategies vary among media and genre Written – stream of consciousness Film – split-screen sequences Visual Narratives Nuanced techniques for sequentially directing a viewer’s attention Visual salience Outliers among visual features such as color, size, and orientation Storytelling with Data Visualization The relationship between the two are rarely articulated clearly Visualization systems have begun to incorporate storytelling into their design GeoTime Stories – create annotated stories within visualizations sense.us – create trails of visualization bookmarks Tableau – review, collate, and export key points of their visual analysis

Case Studies of Narrative Visualization Barry Bonds – historical comparisons; path of exploration accomplished through visual highlighting Budget Forecasts – interactive; multi-messaging; narrative text communicated clearly in caption Afghanistan – multiple tabs; same maps with different measurements; timeline slider; does not sufficiently guide reader (hard to draw meaningful conclusions from large amount of data) Human Development Trends – surveys trends in global income and health; interactive; basic charts with changes in information made explicit Minnesota Employment Explorer – interactive; state unemployment data; social interaction features to share observations; goal was to engage in sharing but failed; no tutorial; graphics disconnected from the narrative

Design Space Analysis Analysis of 58 visualizations Journalism (71%) Business (20%) Visualization research (9%) Design Space Dimensions Three divisions of features: genre, visual narrative tactics, and narrative structure Design Space Observations Three important patterns stand out from the data The clustering of different ordering structures The consistency of interaction design The under-utilization of narrative messaging Genres of Narrative Visualization Balancing Author-Driven and Reader-Driven Stories Martini Glass Structure Interactive Slideshow Drill-Down Story