Narrative Design Patterns for Data-Driven Storytelling

Showing Data About People: A Design Space of Anthropographics

“…Narrative media such as newspaper articles and live presentations are increasingly mixed with visualizations, be they static, animated, or interactive [17], [18], [19], [20]. There has been considerable interest in visualization research in trying to map strategies for telling stories with visualizations.…”

“…An early study examined existing practices and identified seven genres of narrative visualization (i.e., magazine style, annotated chart, partitioned poster, flow chart, comic strip, slide show, and video) [17]. Subsequent research discussed narrative visualizations in terms of the rhetorical [21] and cinematographic [22] techniques employed, sequences and transitions [23], types of presentation they are used in [18], general design patterns [20], and workflows involved in creating them [24]. Other contributions include novel types of narrative visualizations [25], empirical studies [26] and authoring tools (e.g., [27]).…”

“…Allowing people to visualize data based on a familiar setting such as the region the user lives or incorporating data from the audience into the visualization are narrative design patterns that are intended to make users relate to the content [20]. In section 4.6, we discussed an example of a visualization that lets users select attributes and filter people by their demographic characteristics (see Figure 17).…”

Telling Statistical Stories

“…Benjamin Bach and colleagues recommend five different categories of narrative patterns to consider while constructing a narrative about data. These narrative patterns include narrative flow, which helps “set the order, rhythm, and pace” of your story and helps “[build up] the climax and resolution” 5 . An example of creating narrative flow is speeding up or slowing down your narrative to reflect the story's tempo.…”

Brooke Leave Home: Designing a Personalized Film to Support Public Engagement with Open Data

“…visual narrative, animation) can be employed to this end [3]. We extend prior work by evaluating how a range of further narrative features -including those shown to be valuable in other forms of data story, such as personalization and character [9] -can be used in data videos. In doing so, we contribute a video-based perspective to the constellation of approaches being developed in the CHI community that take data to people in ways that are personally relevant, interesting and accessible [23,39,57].…”