Narrative Visualization

Drawn by Laura Garrison

This seminar teaches how visualizations of various types of data can be designed such that they are appropriate for non-experts, e.g., for broad audiences. It is inspired by recent developments in data journalism where online media are employed to create an interactive experience. The core idea is to employ principles from storytelling and narration to the explanation of data. The seminar topics, cover narrative genres, such as animation, slide sets, and data comics, and narrative structures derived from storytelling, such as the Martini Glass structure and Freytag’s pyramid. The topics also cover a wide range of applications, including molecular visualization, visualization of astronomy data, and visualizations related to business and finance data. Accordingly, different visualization techniques are provided, e.g., timeline-based visualization, various diagram types, but also multi-scale 3D visualizations.

Content:
Overview of Narrative Visualization
Concepts and Tools for Story Generation
Applications in climate research, molecular research, and astronomy
Applications in business and finance

Prerequisites:
Lecture in Visualization 

Organizational Information

Attendance times: 2 SWS, weekly seminar, independent work: preparation of the talk, preparation of the seminar work
Date: Thursday, 9:00 to 11:00
1. Lecture: 13.04.2023
Examination: student talk
ECTS-Credits: 3
→ see LSF

Topics and Dates

DateTopicReviewer
28.04.25
05.05.25 Naveenkumar Gunasekaran and Sakshi ChoudharyGrouping, Framing, and Narrative Structures
Nachiketh Rajan
12.05.25 Tabea Grellmann
Kevin Kulot
Diana Jeske
Narrative Visualization of Temporal Data
Cartography Applications
Cinematography Visualization (3D Vis und VR)
Harshit Kumar Tyagi
Lukas Eichel
Cinematography Visualization (3D Vis und VR)
19.05.25 Sophie Moosmann
Aishwarya Chincholi Vasant Madhav
Data Comics
Annotation in Narrative Visualization
Diana Jeske
26.05.25 Bhosale, Shirin Rajiv
Prajwal Sridhar
Climate Change
Applications: Science Museums and Astronomy
Aishwarya Chincholi
Josefine Becker
16.06.25 David Busse
Harshit Kumar Tyagi
Narrative Visualization from Tabular Data
Narrative Visualization of Stock Data
Tabea Grellmann
Prajwal Sridhar
23.06.25 Debapriya Roy & Lucas Philpp?
Noshin Nur Puthentheri Chalil
Tools for Creating Narrative Visualization
Visual Communication, Visual Literacy as Basis for Narrative Visualization
David Busse
30.06.25 Lukas Eichel & Josefine BeckerFreytag’s PyramidNaveenkumar Gunasekaran & Sakshi Choudhary
07.07.25 Anjali Singh
Nachiketh Rajan
Gut Feelings: Telling the Tale of Your Second Brain
Authoring data-driven videos
Debapriya Roy

Material

Narrative Visualization Topic Presentation

Literature

Selected publications primarily from the following venues IEEE TVCG, ACM SIGCHI and CGF.