Presenting data is as important as exploring it. Stories give facts a memorable shape, and the order of the pieces changes what people understand and remember.
Based on Kosara & Mackinlay, Storytelling: The Next Step for Visualization, and Hullman et al., A Deeper Understanding of Sequence in Narrative Visualization (2013)Visualization research has focused on helping analysts find answers. But analysts usually are not the people who decide, so findings have to be communicated.
Find patterns with flexible, interactive tools.
Understand causes and test ideas.
Persuade and be remembered. The next research frontier.
An ordered sequence of steps with a clear path. Each step can be a chart, text, an image or video.
News graphics. A teaser draws readers in; no author to answer questions.
Like Hans Rosling's Gapminder. The presenter can pause, annotate and respond.
Most interactive. Off-script questions are expected, and can feed the next revision.
An analysis of 42 professional narrative visualizations found a few recurring moves.
Broad introduction, narrow to a point, then open up to exploration.
Repeat the same pattern of slides for each part, as in the NYT Copenhagen piece on drought, flooding and crops.
Pose a question, then show the chart that answers it.
Slide-to-slide transitions usually change just one thing. How common each family was:
Designers hold most of a chart constant and vary a single dimension, building complexity gradually. Gapminder does this step by step: distribution, area chart, bubbles, then a second axis.
Count how many of four attributes change between two charts: independent variable, dependent variable, time, level of detail.
Male SAT scores 2010 to female SAT scores 2009 costs 2. Switching to TOEFL scores costs 3.
In a crowdsourced study (143 people), participants picked which chart should come next.
Preference order when cost is equal:
73 students saw six charts in one of four orders, then tried to reconstruct the order.
Best memory for the original order (p = 0.002 overall).
Lower total cost, yet remembered worse and slightly harder to explain.
Best after the story ends, when pausing for questions, or as simple highlighting that keeps readers on the thread.
Text, arrows and narration help, but too much text drowns the data.
Treat each chart as a node in a graph, score transitions by cost and type, and favor parallel patterns.
Which animation helps, and which only distracts?
Can narration or annotation offset a complex transition?
Which chart types work best as storytelling devices?
How should stories be evaluated, and what can film and journalism teach?