Telling the story with data

Lecture 11

Dr. Benjamin Soltoff

Cornell University
INFO 3312/5312 - Spring 2025

February 27, 2025

Announcements

Announcements

• Project presentations next week

Visualization critique

• What is the story?
• How does the author use annotations to improve the chart?

Telling a story

Crafting a narrative

A story is a set of observations, facts, or events, true or invented, that are presented in a specific order such that they create an emotional reaction in the audience.

• Three-act structure (setup, confrontation, resolution)
• Five-act structure (introduction, rise, climax, return/fall, resolution)
• Linear narrative
• Nonlinear narrative

Data communication uses data to tell a story

Multiple ways of telling a story

• Sequential plots: Motivation, then resolution

• A single plot: Resolution, and hidden in it motivation

Simplicity vs. complexity

When you’re trying to show too much data at once you may end up not showing anything.

• Never assume your audience can rapidly process complex visual displays

• Don’t add variables to your plot that are tangential to your story

• Don’t jump straight to a highly complex figure; first show an easily digestible subset (e.g., show one facet first)

• Aim for memorable, but clear

Consistency vs. repetitiveness

Be consistent but don’t be repetitive.

• Use consistent features throughout plots (e.g., same color represents same level on all plots)

• Aim to use a different type of visualization for each distinct analysis

Designing effective visualizations

Keep it simple

Use color to draw attention

Clarify the story

Order matters

Reduce cognitive load

Clearly indicate missing data

Use descriptive titles

Annotate figures

Untangle a messy line chart

Online restaurant reservations

# A tibble: 3,420 × 5
   type    name          abbrev date       pct_change
   <chr>   <chr>         <chr>  <date>          <dbl>
 1 country United States US     2020-04-01      -1.00
 2 country United States US     2020-04-02      -1.00
 3 country United States US     2020-04-03      -1.00
 4 country United States US     2020-04-04      -1.00
 5 country United States US     2020-04-05      -1.00
 6 country United States US     2020-04-06      -1   
 7 country United States US     2020-04-07      -1.00
 8 country United States US     2020-04-08      -1.00
 9 country United States US     2020-04-09      -1   
10 country United States US     2020-04-10      -1.00
# ℹ 3,410 more rows

All the trends

Highlight specific areas

Small multiples

Incorporate geography

Tell a different story

Application exercise

ae-10

Instructions

• Work with your project team members
• Pick one of the questions and charts you have been designing for your presentations
• Identify the story - what are you telling using the chart?
• Identify at least three design choices you can implement to improve your storytelling

Wrap up

Wrap up

• Use data to effectively tell a story
• Use the right plot(s) for your story

Acknowledgments

• Slides derived in part from STA 313: Advanced Data Visualization

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