1

Storytelling in InfoVis

CS 4460 – Intro. to Information Visualization

September 2, 2014

John Stasko

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

Fall 2014 CS 4460 2

Review

2

Telling Stories

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

• Visuals can serve as evidence or support

3Fall 2014 CS 4460

A Famous Example

Fall 2014 CS 4460 4

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

Hans RoslingGapminder

2006

3

They Had Him Back

Fall 2014 CS 4460 5

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?

Fall 2014 CS 4460 6

4

InfoGraphics

• See them everywhere today

• Perhaps a good example of infovis for presentation purposes

Typically not interactive though

Fall 2014 CS 4460 7

http://visual.ly/nuclear-arms-race

8Fall 2014 CS 4460

5

Fall 2014 CS 4460 9

http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1002/almighty-dollar/transparency.jpg

Fall 2014 CS 4460 10

http://www.mikewirthart.com/?cat=3

6

Fall 2014 CS 4460 11

http://thedinfographics.com/2011/11/16/obesity-in-america-facts-statistics-and-lies/

Fall 2014 CS 4460 12

http://www.wired.com/2012/07/you-suck-at-infographics

7

A Lead Paper

• Studied storytelling: Described topics as “Narrative Visualization”

How does this differ from traditional forms of storytelling

Reviews the designspace

Characterizes genres

Describes a framework

Fall 2014 CS 4460 13

Segel & HeerTVCG (InfoVis) ‘10

Case Studies

Fall 2014 CS 4460 14

NY Times 2006

8

Design Space Dimensions

• Genre (next slide)

• Visual Narrative Tactics Visual structuring

Highlighting

Transition Guidance

• Narrative Structure (non-visual mechanisms to assist narrative) Ordering

Interactivity

Messaging

Fall 2014 CS 4460 15

Genres

Fall 2014 CS 4460 16

9

Observations

• Clusters of different ordering structures

• Consistency of interaction design

• Under-utilization of narrative messaging

Fall 2014 CS 4460 17

Approach

• Author-driven vs. reader-driven

• Common patterns

Martini glass

Interactive slideshow

Drill-down story

Fall 2014 CS 4460 18

10

A Hot Topic

Fall 2014 CS 4460 19

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

VisWeek 2010 WorkshopReprised again Fall 2011Continued papers at later InfoVis

Narratology

Fall 2014 CS 4460 20

Interesting talkat workshop

Jessica HullmanUniv. Michigan

Expanded upon insubsequent papers

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

11

Journalism Angle

Fall 2014 CS 4460 21

http://datadrivenjournalism.net

Data Journalism Handbook

Fall 2014 CS 4460 22

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

12

Journalism in the Age of Data

Fall 2014 CS 4460 23

http://datajournalism.stanford.edu/

Video

Some Examples

Fall 2014 CS 4460 24

13

News Stories

Fall 2014 CS 4460 25

Tufte praises the work ofMegan Jaegerman at NY Times

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

An Inconvenient Truth

Fall 2014 CS 4460 26

Gore made extensive useof data graphics

14

Job Losses

Fall 2014 CS 4460 27

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

Mariano Rivera

Fall 2014 CS 4460 28

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

15

Casualties of War

http://www.cnn.com/homeandaway

Fall 2014 CS 4460 29

The President

Going Interactive

Fall 2014 CS 4460 30

2011 State of Union Address

Side channeldata visualizationsaccompanied speech

16

Fall 2014 CS 4460 31

Data Matters

Fall 2014 CS 4460 32

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

DavidMcCandless

17

McCandless Website

Fall 2014 CS 4460 33

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/

More Visualization Stories

Fall 2014 CS 4460 34

AaronKoblin

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

18

Back to Where We Started

Fall 2014 CS 4460 35

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

Questions

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

Fall 2014 CS 4460 36

19

Questions

• What is emphasized in “presentational” infovis versus “analytic” infovis?

Fall 2014 CS 4460 37

My Reflections

• InfoVis for analysis and presentation are different

Apples & oranges (both fruit though)

• How?

Fall 2014 CS 4460 38

20

HW 1 Discussion

• Some examples

• Thoughts

Fall 2014 CS 4460 39

Project

• More topic ideas

• Team formed?

Fall 2014 CS 4460 40

21

Fall 2014 CS 4460 41

Upcoming

• Multivariate Data & Table/Graph Design

Reading:

Munzner chapter 2

• Few’s Design Guidance

Reading:

Now You See It, chapters 5-12