A narrative approach to interactive information visualization in the digital humanities classroom

Abstract

Humanities researchers have expressed concern about the uncritical adoption of information visualization techniques originating in the sciences by digital humanities classrooms. This paper describes an approach to information visualization that encourages students to foreground humanistic concerns by adopting a narrative focus. This approach to visualization development brings interdisciplinary perspectives and techniques to bear on qualitative or quantitative information and constructs stories from those data. To illustrate student experiences, I describe four student projects completed in a graduate course on narrative information visualization. I focus on how this course enabled students to take diverse types of data and construct engaging interactive stories using a range of tools and methods, while continually reflecting critically on their evolving goals and design choices. I conclude by showing how this approach helps students connect humanistic values to information visualization techniques.