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Storytelling in InfoVis
CS 7450 - Information Visualization
Feb. 10, 2011
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 10
Thoughts?
Discuss
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Case Studies
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NY Times 2006
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
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Narratology
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Interesting talk
at workshop
Jessica Hullman
Univ. Michigan
http://thevcl.com/storytelling/docs/jessica_hullman.pdf
Journalism Angle
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http://datadrivenjournalism.net
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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
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An Inconvenient Truth
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Gore made extensive use
of data graphics
Job Losses
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Controversial, see http://soquelbythecreek.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-does-obama-job-chart-really-mean.html
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Mariano Rivera
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http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/06/29/magazine/rivera-pitches.html?ref=multimedia
Casualties of War
http://www.cnn.com/homeandaway
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VisualEyes
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http://www.viseyes.org
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
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Back to Where We Started
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo
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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Administratia
HW 4 due Tuesday
Answers with pictures plus short critique of
Many Eyes
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Upcoming
InfoVis Systems & Toolkits
Reading:
Ward chapter 14
Viegas et al paper
Commercial InfoVis Systems
Reading:
Spenke paper