How to Tell Stories Using Visualization

The benefits of storytelling's are long-known and its potential to simplify concepts, create emotional connection, and capacity to help retain information has been explored in different areas, such as journalism, education, and others. The necessity to incorporate storytelling in visualizations arises from the need to share complex data in a way that is engaging. Advances in technology have enabled us to go beyond the traditional forms of storytelling and representing data, giving us more attractive and sophisticated means to tell stories.In this paper, we present the results of a focus group study that was conducted with the purpose of collecting information on the narrative elements in a collection of visualizations and the possible inclusion of storytelling elements in those. In this study information about the visualizations in terms of comprehension, navigation, and likability was also collected with the intent of identifying elements that are appealing in the visualizations. Furthermore, we suggest strategies for storytelling in visualizations.

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