Storytelling
with data
Amit Kapoor
@amitkaps
War Stories &
Killer Charts
Joshua Bell
Rhetoric
Logos — Ethos — Pathos
Humans are
pattern-seeking
story-telling
animals.
analysis Synthesis
numbers Visuals
argument Story
What is a story or a
narrative?
narrative | ˈnærətiv
noun: Any account of connected events, presented
in a sequence of written words or spoken words or
(moving) pictures.
Events that happen
in time
Linear Order
Named people who
have to face
decisions
Personal Decision
A disruption of a
state of equilibrium
Change in Context
A foregrounding of
human experience
Elevation - Human Emotion
One human life,
closely observed, is
everyone’s life. In
the particular is the
universal.
— Roger Ebert
Storytelling
Visualisation
Think Stories, Not Charts
Explanatory
Growth of the Dual Ecosystem
Exploratory
Where do I live?
The Joy of Stats
Hans Rosling
How can we create
data-stories?
80% perspiration,
10% great idea,
10% output.
— Simon Rogers
We’re bad at the why
questions, which are
often much more
interesting.
— Amanda Cox
Bad Aesthetics
Good Aesthetics
Above all else,
do no harm
— Tufte
Overview first,
then zoom & filter,
details on demand
— Ben Schniederman
Types of Transitions
Meaningful Annotation
Powerful Narration
There's always room
for a story that can
transport people to
another place.
— J.K. Rowling
More Linear, More Storylike
Guide the audience
All stories are
indeed structures,
but all the best
stories are brittle
structures.
— Tadhg Kelly
Linear Navigation
Staging & Animation
Ensure the
interactivity has
Affordance. To
afford means "to
give a clue"
— Dan Norman
How to learn the
skills to craft data-
stories?
Art - Craft - Science
craft | krɑːft
noun: An activity involving skill in
making or doing things by hand
How do you learn a
craft?
Novice — Expert
Start with Basics
Do Repetitions
Conduct Deliberate
Practice
Focus on Mastery
It took me a lifetime
— Pablo Picasso
So, how do you
start?
Learning Styles
We don’t see things
as they are, we see
them as we are.
— Anais Nin
Understand your
own strength
Learning Data
Visualisation &
Storytelling
Start with Charting
Simple Datasets
Learn Basic Charts
Design Basic Charts
Expand your Chart
Vocabulary
Visualisation is the
transformation of
the symbolic into
geometric
— McCormick et al. 1987
Think Geometric,
Not Charts
Encode with Shapes
and Colour
Position them out
Learn the Grammar
Play with Colour
Understand Visual
Perception
Develop an
Aesthetics Sense
Learning to See
The universe is
made of stories, not
of atoms.
— Muriel Rukeyser
Nature
Architecture
Abstract Art
Sketch ideas
Visualise Wide
Datasets
Visualise Large
Datasets
Visualise Spatial
Datasets
Move to Layering
Multi-layered Static
Visualisation
Narrative
Visualisation
Dashboard
Visualisation
Interactive
Visualisation
Tools
Data is just a clue to
the end truth
— Josh Smith
See the world
through a data lens
Aesthetics is deeply
associated with
emotions and
feelings
— Giorgio Lupi
Create beautiful
aesthetics
The data is just part
of the story.
— Jonathan Harris
Tell stories that
connect
Closing the Gap
@amitkaps
amitkaps.com

Storytelling with Data - Approach | Skills