Narrative Visualization: A Case Study of How to Incorporate Narrative Elements in Existing Visualizations

Stories have long been used to convey information, cultural values, and experiences. Narratives not only have been the main way people make sense of the world, but also have been the easiest way humans found out to share complex information. However, today we are confronted with the problem of the amount of information available, which sometimes is hard to cope with. Combining storytelling with visualization has been pointed out as an efficient method to represent and make sense of data, at the same time allowing people to relate with the information. In this paper, we explore the benefits of adding storytelling to visualizations. Drawing on case studies from news media to visualization research websites, we identified possible strategies to introduce storytelling in visualizations such as adding short stories or narrative elements using annotations and using time to introduce the feeling of storytelling or story-flow.