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Proceedings ArticleDOI

Narrative Visualization: A Case Study of How to Incorporate Narrative Elements in Existing Visualizations

16 Jul 2014-pp 46-52
TL;DR: Drawing on case studies from news media to visualization research websites, possible strategies to introduce storytelling in visualizations such as adding short stories or narrative elements using annotations and using time to introduce the feeling of storytelling or story-flow are identified.
Abstract: Stories have long been used to convey information, cultural values, and experiences. Narratives not only have been the main way people make sense of the world, but also have been the easiest way humans found out to share complex information. However, today we are confronted with the problem of the amount of information available, which sometimes is hard to cope with. Combining storytelling with visualization has been pointed out as an efficient method to represent and make sense of data, at the same time allowing people to relate with the information. In this paper, we explore the benefits of adding storytelling to visualizations. Drawing on case studies from news media to visualization research websites, we identified possible strategies to introduce storytelling in visualizations such as adding short stories or narrative elements using annotations and using time to introduce the feeling of storytelling or story-flow.
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper presents a survey of storytelling literature in visualization and presents an overview of the common and important elements in storytelling visualization, as well as a novel classification of the literature on storytelling in visualization.
Abstract: Throughout history, storytelling has been an effective way of conveying information and knowledge. In the field of visualization, storytelling is rapidly gaining momentum and evolving cutting-edge techniques that enhance understanding. Many communities have commented on the importance of storytelling in data visualization. Storytellers tend to be integrating complex visualizations into their narratives in growing numbers. In this paper, we present a survey of storytelling literature in visualization and present an overview of the common and important elements in storytelling visualization. We also describe the challenges in this field as well as a novel classification of the literature on storytelling in visualization. Our classification scheme highlights the open and unsolved problems in this field as well as the more mature storytelling sub-fields. The benefits offer a concise overview and a starting point into this rapidly evolving research trend and provide a deeper understanding of this topic.

91 citations


Cites background or methods from "Narrative Visualization: A Case Stu..."

  • ...Figueiras is based on previous work of storytelling [5,37,67] and narrative visualization [43], and develops a model to add storytelling in narrative visualization [38]....

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  • ...Figueiras [38] introduce a tooltips pop up when a user clicks on one region, which provides more detailed information....

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  • ...Figueiras [28,38] studies how to incorporate narrative elements as storytelling elements....

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  • ...A narrative-based visualization attempts to create a natural flow whereby the data has an obvious progression and therefore permits easier understanding and memorability [38]....

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  • ..., 2011 [37] Figueiras, 2014 [28] Figueiras, 2014 [38] Nguyen et al, 2014 [39] Satyanarayan et al....

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Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jun 2016
TL;DR: This paper presents CLUE (Capture, Label, Understand, Explain), a model that tightly integrates data exploration and presentation of discoveries, and discusses how the CLUE approach can be integrated into visualization tools and provides a prototype implementation.
Abstract: The primary goal of visual data exploration tools is to enable the discovery of new insights. To justify and reproduce insights, the discovery process needs to be documented and communicated. A common approach to documenting and presenting findings is to capture visualizations as images or videos. Images, however, are insufficient for telling the story of a visual discovery, as they lack full provenance information and context. Videos are difficult to produce and edit, particularly due to the non-linear nature of the exploratory process. Most importantly, however, neither approach provides the opportunity to return to any point in the exploration in order to review the state of the visualization in detail or to conduct additional analyses. In this paper we present CLUE (Capture, Label, Understand, Explain), a model that tightly integrates data exploration and presentation of discoveries. Based on provenance data captured during the exploration process, users can extract key steps, add annotations, and author "Vistories", visual stories based on the history of the exploration. These Vistories can be shared for others to view, but also to retrace and extend the original analysis. We discuss how the CLUE approach can be integrated into visualization tools and provide a prototype implementation. Finally, we demonstrate the general applicability of the model in two usage scenarios: a Gapminder-inspired visualization to explore public health data and an example from molecular biology that illustrates how Vistories could be used in scientific journals.

56 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The findings suggest that the authors need to be more careful when it comes to their expectations about the effects visual data storytelling can have on attitudes, and adopt established scales from the social sciences used in the European Social Survey (ESS).
Abstract: In the visualization community, it is often assumed that visual data storytelling increases memorability and engagement, making it more effective at communicating information. However, many assumptions about the efficacy of storytelling in visualization lack empirical evaluation. Contributing to an emerging body of work, we study whether selected techniques commonly used in visual data storytelling influence people's attitudes towards immigration. We compare (a) personal visual narratives designed to generate empathy; (b) structured visual narratives of aggregates of people; and (c) an exploratory visualization without narrative acting as a control condition. We conducted two crowdsourced between-subject studies comparing the three conditions, each with 300 participants. To assess the differences in attitudes between conditions, we adopted established scales from the social sciences used in the European Social Survey (ESS). Although we found some differences between conditions, the effects on people's attitudes are smaller than we expected. Our findings suggest that we need to be more careful when it comes to our expectations about the effects visual data storytelling can have on attitudes. Additional material: https://flowstory.github.io/attitudes/.

24 citations

Proceedings ArticleDOI
01 Sep 2015
TL;DR: This article surveys the historical background and development of information and data visualization, and an overview of the intersection of data visualization with storytelling applied to the field of data journalism, where it finds its most widespread use in narrative visualizations.
Abstract: In this article we survey the historical background and development of information and data visualization, and an overview of the intersection of data visualization with storytelling applied to the field of data journalism, where it finds its most widespread use in narrative visualizations. We start by explaining why the mere act of visualization can be highly useful to readers, helping them discover patterns and comprehend information. Backed by historical references, we will describe how some of the first data visualizations were used to explain facts, understand certain events, and determine courses of action. We will then outline how storytelling and narrative techniques are being currently used with data visualization to leverage the power of visual expression. Our goal is to characterize storytelling with data as a vibrant and interesting field that current journalism practices employ to help readers understand and form opinions on complex facts. By presenting concepts like storytelling with data and data stories, we aim to spark interest in further research in the applications of data visualization and narrative.

19 citations


Cites background from "Narrative Visualization: A Case Stu..."

  • ...A meaningful set of research questions proposed by Figueiras [29] articulate very succinctly new avenues of research in narrative visualization:...

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  • ...[29] Ana Figueiras....

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  • ...[25] Ana Figueiras....

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  • ...A meaningful set of research questions proposed by Figueiras [29] articulate very succinctly new avenues of research in narrative visualization: • what makes it work (level of knowledge communication); • which of the narrative visualizations that are being produced in news media, advertising, research, education, etc. are having the desired effect on users; • how and where should narrative elements be placed; • how should the story be structured; • what is the impact of these stories on the users....

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  • ...Figueiras states that “although having a direction will help users that are less familiar with the subject, an undirected exploration can help proficient users find new interpretations of the data and even discover meanings that were not foreseen by the creators of the visualization....

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Proceedings ArticleDOI
06 May 2021
TL;DR: ToonNote as discussed by the authors is a JupyterLab extension that enables the conversion of computational notebooks into data comics, highlighting the most important results while supporting interactive and free exploration of the dataset.
Abstract: Computational notebooks help data analysts analyze and visualize datasets, and share analysis procedures and outputs. However, notebooks typically combine code (e.g., Python scripts), notes, and outputs (e.g., tables, graphs). The combination of disparate materials is known to hinder the comprehension of notebooks, making it difficult for analysts to collaborate with other analysts unfamiliar with the dataset. To mitigate this problem, we introduce ToonNote, a JupyterLab extension that enables the conversion of notebooks into “data comics.” ToonNote provides a simplified view of a Jupyter notebook, highlighting the most important results while supporting interactive and free exploration of the dataset. This paper presents the results of a formative study that motivated the system, its implementation, and an evaluation with 12 users, demonstrating the effectiveness of the produced comics. We discuss how our findings inform the future design of interfaces for computational notebooks and features to support diverse collaborators.

18 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the literature, there is a variety of genres, each of which branches out into a wide variety of media, as if all substances could be relied upon to accommodate man's stories as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: of all, there is a prodigious variety of genres, each of which branches out into a variety of media, as if all substances could be relied upon to accommodate man's stories. Among the vehicles of narrative are articulated language, whether oral or written, pictures, still or moving, gestures, and an ordered mixture of all those substances; narrative is present in myth, legend, fables, tales, short stories, epics, history, tragedy, drame [suspense drama], comedy, pantomime, paintings (in Santa Ursula by Carpaccio, for instance), stained-glass windows, movies, local news, conversation. Moreover, in this infinite variety of forms, it is present at all times, in all places, in all societies; indeed narrative starts with the very history of mankind; there is not, there has never been anywhere, any people without narrative; all classes, all human groups, have their stories, and very often those stories are enjoyed by men of different and even opposite cultural backgrounds: narrative remains largely unconcerned with good or bad literature. Like life itself, it is there, international, transhistorical, transcultural. Are we to infer from such universality that narrative is insignificant? Is it so common that we can say nothing about it, except for a modest description of a few highly particularized species, as literary history sometimes does? Indeed how are we to control such variety, how are we to justify our right to distinguish or recognize them? How can we tell the novel from the short story, the tale from the myth, suspense drama from tragedy (it has been done a thousand times) without reference to a common model? Any critical attempt to describe even the most specific, the most historically oriented narrative form implies such a model. It is, therefore, understandable that thinkers as early as Aristotle should have concerned themselves with the study of narrative forms, and not have abandoned all ambition to talk about them, giving

1,260 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Drawing on case studies from news media to visualization research, distinct genres of narrative visualization are identified and a framework suggests design strategies for narrative visualization, including promising under-explored approaches to journalistic storytelling and educational media.
Abstract: Data visualization is regularly promoted for its ability to reveal stories within data, yet these “data stories” differ in important ways from traditional forms of storytelling. Storytellers, especially online journalists, have increasingly been integrating visualizations into their narratives, in some cases allowing the visualization to function in place of a written story. In this paper, we systematically review the design space of this emerging class of visualizations. Drawing on case studies from news media to visualization research, we identify distinct genres of narrative visualization. We characterize these design differences, together with interactivity and messaging, in terms of the balance between the narrative flow intended by the author (imposed by graphical elements and the interface) and story discovery on the part of the reader (often through interactive exploration). Our framework suggests design strategies for narrative visualization, including promising under-explored approaches to journalistic storytelling and educational media.

996 citations


"Narrative Visualization: A Case Stu..." refers background in this paper

  • ...Interactive storytelling, for instance, is becoming very popular on news casting and documentaries, areas that were up until recently holding on to traditional forms of storytelling....

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  • ...Gershon and Page [5] were the first to notice that storytelling could give a valuable contribution to the area of Information visualization, without however truly describing examples of actual information/data visualization and contributing with strategies de facto to introduce storytelling....

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  • ...…[6]: situatedness (discourse context or occasion for telling), event sequencing (structured time-course of events), world making/world disruption (disruption of a state of equilibrium), and what it is like (the feelings of living through the situation and a foregrounding of human experience)....

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  • ...Keywords—Storytelling, narrative visualization, case study....

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  • ...In the beginning we have the set up or base reality, that may include background information and a change or conflict....

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Book
01 Jan 2009
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a survey of approaches to constructing a storyworld from context of Narration to Narrative as a type of text, with a focus on the role of stories in science.
Abstract: List of Illustrations. The Elements. Preface . The Scope and Aims of This Book. Storytelling Media and Modes of Narration. Acknowledgments . 1. Getting Started: A Thumbnail Sketch of the Approach Developed in This Book. Toward a Working Definition of Narrative. Profiles of Narrative. Narrative: Basic Elements. 2. Background and Context: Framing the Approach. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Narrative and Narrative Theory. Major Trends in Recent Scholarship on Narrative. 3. Back to the Elements: Narrative Occasions . Situating Stories. Sociolinguistic Approaches. Positioning Theory. The Narrative Communication Model. Conclusion. 4. Temporality, Particularity, and Narrative: An Excursion into the Theory of Text Types. From Contexts of Narration to Narrative as a Type of Text. Text Types and Categorization Processes. Narrative as a Text-Type Category: Descriptions vs. Stories vs. Explanations. Summing up: Text Types, Communicative Competence, and the Role of Stories in Science. 5. The Third Element: Or, How to Build a Storyworld . Narratives as Blueprints for Worldmaking. Narrative Ways of Worldmaking. Narrative Worlds: A Survey of Approaches. Configuring Narrative Worlds: The WHAT, WHERE, and WHEN Dimensions of Storyworlds. Worlds Disrupted: Narrativity and Noncanonical Events. 6. The Nexus of Narrative and Mind . The Consciousness Factor. Consciousness Across Narrative Genres. Experiencing Minds: What It's Like, Qualia, Raw Feels. Storied Minds: Narrative Foundations of Consciousness?. Appendix . Reproduction of Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" (1927). Transcript of a Story Told during Face-to-Face Interaction: UFO or the Devil. Pages from Daniel's Clowes's Graphic Novel Ghost World (1997). Screenshots from Terry Zwigoff's Film Version of Ghost World (2001). Glossary . References. Index

511 citations


"Narrative Visualization: A Case Stu..." refers background in this paper

  • ...“Narrative is first and foremost a prodigious variety of genres, themselves distributed amongst different substances – as though any material were fit to receive man’s stories....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is described how designers and researchers can benefit from the potentially positive aspects of visualization rhetoric in designing engaging, layered narrative visualizations and how the framework can shed light on how a visualization design prioritizes specific interpretations.
Abstract: Narrative visualizations combine conventions of communicative and exploratory information visualization to convey an intended story. We demonstrate visualization rhetoric as an analytical framework for understanding how design techniques that prioritize particular interpretations in visualizations that "tell a story" can significantly affect end-user interpretation. We draw a parallel between narrative visualization interpretation and evidence from framing studies in political messaging, decision-making, and literary studies. Devices for understanding the rhetorical nature of narrative information visualizations are presented, informed by the rigorous application of concepts from critical theory, semiotics, journalism, and political theory. We draw attention to how design tactics represent additions or omissions of information at various levels-the data, visual representation, textual annotations, and interactivity-and how visualizations denote and connote phenomena with reference to unstated viewing conventions and codes. Classes of rhetorical techniques identified via a systematic analysis of recent narrative visualizations are presented, and characterized according to their rhetorical contribution to the visualization. We describe how designers and researchers can benefit from the potentially positive aspects of visualization rhetoric in designing engaging, layered narrative visualizations and how our framework can shed light on how a visualization design prioritizes specific interpretations. We identify areas where future inquiry into visualization rhetoric can improve understanding of visualization interpretation.

368 citations


"Narrative Visualization: A Case Stu..." refers background in this paper

  • ...…a narrative [6]: situatedness (discourse context or occasion for telling), event sequencing (structured time-course of events), world making/world disruption (disruption of a state of equilibrium), and what it is like (the feelings of living through the situation and a foregrounding of human…...

    [...]

  • ...Gershon and Page [5] were the first to notice that storytelling could give a valuable contribution to the area of Information visualization, without however truly describing examples of actual information/data visualization and contributing with strategies de facto to introduce storytelling....

    [...]