1

Storytelling in InfoVis

CS 7450 - Information Visualization

October 3, 2012

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

Fall 2012 CS 7450 2

Review

2

Telling Stories

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

• Visuals can serve as evidence or support

3 Fall 2012 CS 7450

A Famous Example

Fall 2012 CS 7450 4

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

Hans Rosling Gapminder

2006

3

They Had Him Back

Fall 2012 CS 7450 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 2012 CS 7450 6

4

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

Fall 2012 CS 7450 7

Segel & Heer TVCG (InfoVis) ‘10

Thoughts?

• Discuss

Fall 2012 CS 7450 8

5

Case Studies

Fall 2012 CS 7450 9

NY Times 2006

Design Space

• Genre

• Visual Narrative Visual structuring

Highlighting

Transition Guidance

• Narrative Structure Ordering

Interactivity

Messaging

Fall 2012 CS 7450 10

6

Genres

Fall 2012 CS 7450 11

Observations

• Clusters of different ordering structures

• Consistency of interaction design

• Under-utilization of narrative messaging

Fall 2012 CS 7450 12

7

Approach

• Author-driven vs. reader-driven

• Common patterns

Martini glass

Interactive slideshow

Drill-down story

Fall 2012 CS 7450 13

A Hot Topic

Fall 2012 CS 7450 14

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

8

Narratology

Fall 2012 CS 7450 15

Interesting talk at workshop Jessica Hullman Univ. Michigan

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

Journalism Angle

Fall 2012 CS 7450 16

http://datadrivenjournalism.net

9

Data Journalism Handbook

Fall 2012 CS 7450 17

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

Journalism in the Age of Data

Fall 2012 CS 7450 18

http://datajournalism.stanford.edu/

10

Some Examples

Fall 2012 CS 7450 19

News Stories

Fall 2012 CS 7450 20

Tufte praises the work of Megan Jaegerman at NY Times

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

11

An Inconvenient Truth

Fall 2012 CS 7450 21

Gore made extensive use of data graphics

Job Losses

Fall 2012 CS 7450 22

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

12

Mariano Rivera

Fall 2012 CS 7450 23

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

Casualties of War

http://www.cnn.com/homeandaway

Fall 2012 CS 7450 24

13

VisualEyes

Fall 2012 CS 7450 25

http://www.viseyes.org

The President

Going Interactive

Fall 2012 CS 7450 26

2011 State of Union Address

Side channel data visualizations accompanied speech

14

Fall 2012 CS 7450 27

Data Matters

Fall 2012 CS 7450 28

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

David McCandless

15

McCandless Website

Fall 2012 CS 7450 29

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/

More Visualization Stories

Fall 2012 CS 7450 30

Aaron Koblin

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

16

Back to Where We Started

Fall 2012 CS 7450 31

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

Questions

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

Fall 2012 CS 7450 32

17

Questions

• Would you characterize these as information visualizations?

Consider some of the different examples

Fall 2012 CS 7450 33

Fall 2012 CS 7450 34

HW 5

• Commercial systems review

Any questions?

• Due next Weds Oct 10

18

Fall 2012 CS 7450 35

Upcoming

• Guest speakers

• Overview and Detail

Reading:

Bederson et al ‘04