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Storytelling in InfoVis

CS 7450 - Information Visualization

September 30, 2013

John Stasko

Topic Notes

Purpose

• Two main uses of infovis

Analysis – Understand your data better and act upon that understanding

Presentation – Communicate and inform others more effectively

• Today we look at that second one more

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Review

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Telling Stories

• Data visualization can help to communicate ideas, summarize, influence, unite, explain, persuade

• Visuals can serve as evidence or support

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A Famous Example

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http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

Hans Rosling Gapminder

2006

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They Had Him Back

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http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty.html

2007

Discuss

• Why has this had such a big impact?

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Characterizing the Area

• Studied storytelling: Described topics as “Narrative Visualization”

How does this differ from traditional forms of storytelling

Reviews the design space

Characterizes genres

Describes a framework

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Segel & Heer TVCG (InfoVis) ‘10

Case Studies

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NY Times 2006

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Design Space

• Genre

• Visual Narrative Visual structuring

Highlighting

Transition Guidance

• Narrative Structure Ordering

Interactivity

Messaging

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Genres

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Observations

• Clusters of different ordering structures

• Consistency of interaction design

• Under-utilization of narrative messaging

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Approach

• Author-driven vs. reader-driven

• Common patterns

Martini glass

Interactive slideshow

Drill-down story

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A Hot Topic

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http://thevcl.com/storytelling/ http://flowingdata.com/2010/11/11/telling-stories-with-data-a-visweek-2010-workshop/

VisWeek 2010 Workshop Reprised again this fall

Narratology

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Interesting talk at workshop Jessica Hullman Univ. Michigan

http://thevcl.com/storytelling/docs/jessica_hullman.pdf

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Journalism Angle

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http://datadrivenjournalism.net

Data Journalism Handbook

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http://datajournalismhandbook.org/1.0/en/

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Journalism in the Age of Data

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http://datajournalism.stanford.edu/

Some Examples

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News Stories

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Tufte praises the work of Megan Jaegerman at NY Times

http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0002w4

An Inconvenient Truth

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Gore made extensive use of data graphics

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Job Losses

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Controversial, see http://soquelbythecreek.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-does-obama-job-chart-really-mean.html

Mariano Rivera

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http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/06/29/magazine/rivera-pitches.html?ref=multimedia

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Casualties of War

http://www.cnn.com/homeandaway

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VisualEyes

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http://www.viseyes.org

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The President

Going Interactive

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2011 State of Union Address

Side channel data visualizations accompanied speech

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Data Matters

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http://www.ted.com/talks/david_mccandless_the_beauty_of_data_visualization.html

David McCandless

McCandless Website

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http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/

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More Visualization Stories

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Aaron Koblin

http://www.ted.com/talks/aaron_koblin.html

Back to Where We Started

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo

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Questions

• How do these types of visualizations differ from “traditional” infovis?

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Questions

• Would you characterize these as information visualizations?

Consider some of the different examples

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HW 5

• Commercial systems review

Any questions?

• Due next Weds Oct 9

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Upcoming

• Tufte’s design principles

• Poster session