Introduction
Identify the purpose
- Exhibition (Decorative) - Data art for visual expression, delight and impact e.g. infographics
- Exploration (Interactivity) - Data tool for engagement, exploration and discovery
- Explanatory (Storytelling) - Data stories for telling a specific and (linear) visual narrative
Add all three
Visuals and stories without data is art and we have great examples of these in the form of comics, movies, etc. Data and visuals without a story is graphs and we have understood a lot about graphs over the last 30 years. Stories and data without visuals are tales and we have been telling tales for a long time, though maybe less so of the data kind. But if we can find a way to put all of them together, we can possibly hit the sweet spot. We need all three of them.
Aim for persuasion
It is the aesthetic experience of the story and the visual which captures the whole of the mind. We miss out if we only focus on the power of logos (logical) through data and appeal to the intellect. We forget the power of pathos (emotional) and even ethos (credibility), which visuals and stories bring by engaging our visual and our aural senses.
Build your skills
We can all tell a good story, if we appreciate silence. We can all create a good visual, if we appreciate white spaces. We just need to learn the art of listening and observing again. I don’t think it is hard. We were all doing it so well when we were children. We just need to find that right brain again and bring it to work.
Understand the process
There are four key steps required for telling visual stories with data.
- See the data: Can we see the patterns, the difference, the trends and the outliers in the data that provide the insight?
- Show the visual: Can we show it in temporal, spatial or categorical arrangement that turns that insight into an interesting visual?
- Tell the story: Can we tell it in a narrative that would explain it to the audience and allow them to connect with it?
- Engage the audience: Can we allow the audience to engage with the story and build their own imagery?
Focus on empathy
“I think people have begun to forget how powerful human stories are, exchanging their sense of empathy for a fetishistic fascination with data, networks, patterns, and total information… Really, the data is just part of the story. The human stuff is the main stuff, and the data should enrich it.” - Jonathan Harris