Juice Analytics

From Edward Tufte’s Visual Explanations, a diagram based on Salman Rushdie‘s description of the Indian epid Kathasaritsagara or Ocean of the Streams of Story.

The hot new concept in data visualization is “data storytelling”; some are calling it the next evolution of visualization (I’m one of them). However, we’re early in the discussion and there are more questions than answers:

• Is data storytelling more than a catchy phrase?
• Where does data storytelling fit into the broader landscape of data exploration, visualization, and presentation?
• How can the traditional tools of storytelling improve how we communicate with data?
• Is it more about story-telling or story-finding?

Many of the bright minds in the data visualization field have started to tackle these questions — and it is something that we’ve been exploring at Juice in our work. Below you’ll find a collection of some of the best blog posts, presentations, research papers, and other resources that take on this topic.

Note: I’ve excluded a lot of excellent sites and articles that use the phase data storytelling, but treat it as fresh way to talk about data visualization.

1. Blog Posts

Storytelling with Data: What Are the Impacts on the Audience? by Nick Diakopoulos
“I realize there’s a whole lot of inspiration out there, and some damn fine examples of great work, but I still find it hard to get a sense of direction…We need to know what makes a data story “work”. And what does a data story that “works” even mean?”

A Data Scientist’s Real Job: Storytelling by Jeff Bladt and Bob Filbin
“In short, we’re tasked with transforming data into directives. Good analysis parses numerical outputs into an understanding of the organization. We “humanize” the data by turning raw numbers into a story about our performance.”

Coffee & Empathy: Why data without a soul is meaningless by Om Malik
“The idea of combining data, emotion and empathy as part of a narrative is something every company — old, new, young and mature — has to internalize. If they don’t, they will find themselves on the wrong side of history.”

Look ma, no story! by Moritz Stefaner
“Tools have no stories to them. Tools can reveal stories, help us tell stories, but they are neither the story itself nor the storyteller. Portraits have no story to them either. Like a photo portrait of a person, a visualization portrait of a data set can allow you to capture many facets of a bigger whole, but there is not a single story there, either.”

Discussion: Storytelling and success stories by Andy Kirk
“I just wanted to share my view on the distinction I personally make between the two main types of visualisation function: exploratory and explanatory”

The secret to storytelling is in the editing by Garr Reynolds
“Although it is a film about the role of editing in filmmaking, the lessons and principles are applicable to other creative work such as writing, and storytelling of all kinds, including presentations.”

Visualising data: can you see stories? by Chris Twigg
“Narrative can on the one hand be broken down into a set of universal laws and principles that may transcend mediums. Stories have temporality in common (they deal with time) as well as causation (they deal with cause and effect of something). On the other hand there are the more media specific narrative affordances as for example in the way that film, opera, novel and data visualisation – because of their physicality and the dimensions open to them – would be able to give a different ‘staging’ of a story.”

Data Visualization as Storytelling: A Stretched Analogy by Zach Gemignani
“For practitioners of the craft, connecting our work to stories feels satisfying — it is a call to raise our standards and an opportunity to enhance the influence of our field. Stories evoke images of rapt audiences, dramatic arcs, and unexpected plot twists. Unfortunately this analogy is a stretch.”

Why good storytelling helps you design great products by Braden Kowitz
“It’s not uncommon for designers to confuse a beautiful looking product with one that works beautifully. A great technique for creating smarter, better products is to approach them using story-centered design.”

How might rhetoric inform information design? (Quora) and related blog post by Stewart McCoy

2. Presentations

How to Tell Stories with Data (Really) by Edward Segal
PDF version

Visualising Workflow: Findings Stories and Telling Stories by Andy Kirk

Storytelling with data visualization: Questions and challenges by Albert Cairo

Storytelling with Data by Jonathan Corum

3. Research Papers

Visualization Rhetoric: Framing Effects in Narrative Visualization by Nick Diakopoulos (Summary, Research Paper)
“We carefully analyzed 51 narrative visualizations and constructed a taxonomy of rhetorical techniques we found being used. We observed rhetorical techniques being employed at four different editorial layers of a visualization: data, visual representation, annotations, and interactivity. The five main classes of rhetoric we found being used include: information access (e.g. how data is omitted or aggregated), provenance (e.g. how data sources are explained and how uncertainty is shown), mapping (e.g. the use of visual metaphor), linguistic techniques (e.g. irony or apostrophe), and procedural rhetoric (e.g. how default views anchor interpretation).”

Narrative Visualization: Telling Stories with Data by E. Segel and J. Heer
(Abstract, Research Paper)
“We systematically review the design space of this emerging class of visualizations. Drawing on case studies from news media to visualization research, we identify distinct genres of narrative visualization. We characterize these design differences, together with interactivity and messaging, in terms of the balance between the narrative flow intended by the author (imposed by graphical elements and the interface) and story discovery on the part of the reader (often through interactive exploration).”

Storytelling: The Next Step for Visualization by Robert Kosara and Jack Mackinlay
“Presentation and communication of data have so far played a minor role in visualization research, with most work focused on exploration and analysis. We propose that presentation, in particular using elements from storytelling, is the next logical step and should be a research focus of at least equal importance as each of the other two.”

What Storytelling Can Do for Information Visualization (PDF) by Nahum Gershon and Ward Page
“Effective presentations using the storytelling approach require skills like those familiar to movie directors, beyond a technical expert’s knowledge of computer engineering and science. Creating a presentation is not just a matter of being literate in visual media and storytelling but depends on a frame of mind that caters to other modes of human information processing and thinking.”

The Enchanted Imagination: Storytelling’s Power to Entrance Listeners
“While storytelling has flourished, there has not been a concomitant surge in research of the art form. One element of storytelling has remained nearly unconsidered, and it is, perhaps, the most profound and influential characteristic of storytelling: its power to entrance those who listen.”

4. Tools, Examples, and Other Resources

Hans Rosling’s TED Talks
“What sets Rosling apart isn’t just his apt observations of broad social and economic trends, but the stunning way he presents them. Guaranteed: You’ve never seen data presented like this. By any logic, a presentation that tracks global health and poverty trends should be, in a word: boring. But in Rosling’s hands, data sings. Trends come to life. And the big picture — usually hazy at best — snaps into sharp focus.”

Robert McKee, Godfather of Storytelling (Wikipedia)
Rather than simply handling “mechanical” aspects of fiction technique such as plot or dialogue taken individually, McKee examines the narrative structure of a work and what makes the story compelling or not. This could work equally as well as an analysis of any other genre or form of narrative, whether in screenplay or any other form, and could also encompass nonfiction works as long as they attempt to “tell a story”.

Stories Through Data
Exploring storytelling in data visualization. A collection of visualizations sorted by Chris Twigg’s narrative analysis framework.

13pt Information Graphics
Gallery of examples from the studio of Jonathan Corum, an information designer and science graphics editor at The New York Times.

A free and collaborative taxonomy of Data Storytelling tools by Philippe Nieuwbourg
“To summarize my investigations around data storytelling tools I created a mind map. This map will be an up-to-date taxonomy / ontology / typology, of software available on the market, to create stories around data.”

DataStorytelling.tv
“An independent website, dedicated to storytelling around data.”

Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling
“Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.”

Bob Beamon’s Long Olympic Shadow by Kevin Quealy and Graham Roberts (NYT)

For a famous person, Edward Tufte is adept at avoiding the papparazzi. You probably know this iconic Tufte teaching picture. But it is pretty hard to find another picture of him.

Until now. The clever folks at AdAgeStat were able to get a shot (undoubtably with a bowtie camera) of Tufte for an interview on their AdAgeStat blog.

Tufte in full color

The interview is worth a read. It covers some of the typical Tufte hobby-horses, like this rant about PowerPoint:

“PowerPoint benefits the bottom 10% of presenters by forcing them to have points, some points … any points at all. And the best 10% of presenters have such good content, style and self-awareness that PowerPoint does little damage. PowerPoint should be used solely as a projector operating system to show 100% content, without the bullet grunts, logos and the formatting nonsense from the Strategic Communications Department, and the $20 million Pentagram corporate format guidelines.”

That stuff aside, there were some great nuggets about data presentation. For example his take on presenters and credibility:

“Presenters need (1) to tell a coherent story and (2) to convince their audience of their credibility. A good way to gain credibility is not to have lied to the same audience last month. Another is to demonstrate that you are not a cherry picker, basing your case on evidence selection rather that on evidence. Another necessity is to demonstrate your mastery of detail.”

In my experience, providing your audience with some (limited) flexibility to interact with the data is a great mechanism for building credibility. Have the confidence to allow access to more than cherrypicked data and you won’t come across as manipulative.

Tufte pushes back on the notion of being “overwhelmed by data” by saying:

“Overload, clutter, and confusion are not attributes of information, they are failures of design. So if something is cluttered, fix your design, don’t throw out information. If something is confusing, don’t blame your victim — the audience — instead, fix the design.”

In the world of business intelligence and reporting software, there isn’t a lot of empathy with audiences. The focus is squarely on the user trying to create something, not the reader trying to understand the content.

Finally, he hits on a seldom-discussed gap in data analysis by noting that “good content reasoners and presenters are rare, designers are not.”

In conversations with people like Andrew Abela and Nancy Duarte, we’ve thought a lot about how tools can help people better present data. In the end, it is still a very human art form to synthesize understanding about a problem and construct a logical argument or story around it. Tools can only help facilitate and guide the process. That’s what we are trying to do with Slice.

I’m not alone in feeling that the breathless excitement about “Big Data” is a bit much — just ask Stephen Few (Big Data, Big Deal). The skepticism isn’t directed at the vast possibilities inherent in broader use of data; we’re more concerned that “Big” isn’t the full answer. In fact, focusing on “Big” distracts from other fundamental barriers — particularly the very human skills required for thoughtful analysis and effective communication of insights.

These missing links are illustrated beautifully in an article by Felix Salmon, a blogging editor for Reuters, about the election — When Quants Tell Stories:

“If you think that the value of Nate Silver is in the model, you’re missing the most important part: there are lots of people with models, and most of those models are pretty similar to each other. The thing which sets Silver apart from the rest is that he can write: he can take a model and turn it into a narrative, walking his readers through to his conclusions.”

“At heart, the campaign was marrying quantitative skills with storytelling, to unbeatable effect. Which stories should the campaign tell, to any given group of people? How should it tell those stories? And who should it get to deliver those stories?”

“The thing that Silver and the Obama campaign have in common, then, is that they used their databases to tell stories. Or, more to the point, their databases and models were used so that Americans could tell stories to each other.”

All the work of collecting, combining, and modeling data is wasted if not enough attention is paid to how the data is shared. The data needs to be transformed into bite-sized (pre-chewed, even) stories that can easily stick in the brains of your audience. And as evidenced by the Obama campaign, there are often many different stories based on the context of each audience member. Years ago, we dubbed this The Last Mile of Business Intelligence. Despite new data trends, technologies, and buzz words, some fundamentals never change.

The Juice Analytics team will be in Nashville July 9 – 11, 2012 and while we can’t carry a tune, we’ll have with us an interactive demo of our hosted reporting platform to share. Of course, we’ll also share the latest around dashboard and interface design, as well as data visualization, in general, along with other stuff that interests you.

Reach out if you’d like to meet up while we’re in town.

(P.S. If other cities have pent up demand for Juice, reach out and we’ll consider a visit.)

Cheers!

Is the Score or the Rainbow More Memorable?

A cool afternoon rain was the only thing damper than the spirits of the 12-year-olds who shuffled off the field. With the score still lit up on the wooden scoreboard, the coaches yelled to the boys as they struggled to lift their heads so they might catch a glimpse of a rainbow as it rose from the fence in front of them.

The players of both the winning and losing teams stood there on the wet, steamy grass, frozen in place, in awe of the sight of a rainbow that mystically appeared as if painted on the sky just for them to see. For them, it was an atta boy, pat on the back, a perfect way to wrap up a hard fought double header in which the score had not quite represented the effort that the losing team had given, where the stats failed to tell the tale that brought these two teams together on the hallowed Cooperstown soil.

That’s the thing about numbers. When left to their own devices, they can feel as cold as digits on a lonely scoreboard. They say nothing of the teams who trained for months, played together game after game, relinquished their Saturdays and played nearly perfect seasons just to get to the tournament.

Numbers alone tell us nothing of context. When we have something particularly meaningful to say, images help us share it best. Dashboards and data visualizations bring to life presentations in which we can engage in two-way conversations with our audience making the story around our data more memorable, impactful and effective than any spreadsheet or table of numbers we can put in front of them.

What will your audience remember? The numbers, the final score? Share visually, and they will remember the rainbow and the sunshine that most certainly will follow.

Special thanks to Peter Bielan, my significant other, for inspiring this blog by sharing this photo that he shot during his son’s baseball team pilgrimage to Cooperstown, NY this week.  

Most dashboards just talk and don’t listen. Have you ever been in a “conversation” with someone and they talk 90% of the time. They ask you a question and while you’re 15 seconds into answering they interrupt and starting offloading their mountains of insight. It’s mostly about them. And their consideration for you? Not so much.

That is what most dashboards do. Blah, blah, blah. What if…

What if the information presentations we interacted with actually acknowledged who they’re talking to, listened more, and talked less? What if we were to replace the focus on data with a conversation and a way of working out the complexities of data between two or more people.

To do this properly, think about what a “good conversation” is. Here are a few characteristics we came up with:

• The people have similar experience around a topic; so they know what they’re talking about, but because every person is unique, they’ve gathered unique insight that can be shared. The varying, educated perspective keeps the conversation interesting.
• The one doesn’t overly interrupt the other. Sure there may be reasons to interrupt here and there, but, if interruption is the norm, it quickly gets as annoying (and rude) as your cable news political analyst.
• There is a sense of genuine care for what the other person is saying because, well… there is a genuine sense for what the other person is saying. Too often people get caught up in the “tricks” of networking and small talk and “the hook.” What if people actually respond to what’s genuine?
• Distractions are minimal. One person isn’t constantly checking their phone or entertaining other interests. People are very adept at sensing interest. They do this by reading you: body language, eyes, word usage, how you breathe, pace of speech, and inflection to name a few. If you are actually interested in hearing what another else has to say, they will know.
• You trust the other person. There is an assumed authenticity about each other. This is slow to build and easy to break.

So there’s a few qualities of good conversation, but why? People don’t often stop to think about why they enjoy good conversation. Let’s look at the benefits:

• Your perspective is sharpened. You don’t have to live through the same experience the other person did in order to benefit from their insight. That is, if you trust what they are saying. This is a big time saver! Imagine if no one acted on anything but personally experienced information. You may know some people like that. They flounder, spending more time re-discovering rather than benefiting.
• Your momentum is accelerated. Good conversations with trustworthy friends or experts is one of the biggest ways we overcome obstacles and keep momentum in life.
• A dependable relationship is formed. You know if you ever want to talk about “x” topic again, where to turn. As the trust is built in that conversation, you are also setting this person as someone you can turn for solid footing when future steps are required.
• Great conversations lighten your burden. Joking isn’t trivial, in fact, some the most serious conversations benefit from humor. It promotes an open mind and releases misplaced pressure over circumstances.

Now, why is a designer at a visualization, dashboarding, software company talking about all these warm fuzzies?! Presenting information is about people. We’re adamant about that at Juice. We’ve been focusing on what people actually want out of their data for a long time. Why? Because it’s a hole in the market and it’s fundamental to knowing what people both need and want to see out of “information experiences” they encounter. Until we appreciate the qualities and benefits of good conversations, we don’t have a firm foundation for sharing and communicating data.

You’re saying, “Well, that’s all fine and good, but how in the world does this play out in an application or dashboard?.” I’m glad you asked. This concept is something of deep interest at Juice and the thoughts here represent the tip of the iceberg. As we actively work through these concepts, we’ll look to provide practical examples in the coming months.

Questions
What are some of the qualities of an enjoyable conversation you’ve had this week?
How did it affect your day?
In what ways could you imagine your dashboard just talking and not listening?

Dig Deeper
This talk by John Cleese (of Monty Python’s Flying Circus) is one of the best on creativity I’ve ever seen, and it speaks to the seriousness of humor, for the jokesters among you.

Evaluate and apply some related design principles to your application: Make it conversational, Use common language, Consider data comfort and expertise.

Clad in neon green from their jerseys to their shoes, the Baylor Bears advanced to the South Regional finals in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament last night, leading by as many as 18 points in a game that was pretty hard to watch. Literally.

Can Color Create a Competitive Advantage?

Spectators had lots to say about Baylor in the Georgia Dome last night, but instead of commenting about their talent, skill and ball handling, most people talked about the obnoxious neon “green” color that the Bears and their fans were wearing. Their neon green uniforms (think “tennis ball” yellow) made it nearly impossible to keep your eyes off of them — yet for many of us, was a complete distraction from the game itself.

As I tried to watch, I thought about the critical role that color plays in the communication of data and information. By highlighting certain details with color, we choose to draw attention to them or put greater emphasis on them. At the same time, color has the potential to confuse or distract our audience if the color we select conflicts with the message or purpose we have in mind.

Can color impact outcomes, giving one team a greater (and perhaps unfair) advantage over another? Could the Baylor Bear’s neon uniforms be playing a part in their success?

What are your thoughts?

For more on color and tips for your next presentation, design or data visualization, see “Color Has Meaning”.

Spring is a great time to spruce things up.  While you’re at it, consider adding a little shine to you and your skills.

We’ve made it easy for you by adding five more videos to our resources page that will help sharpen your saw, as Stephen Covey might say, in this important area of your life.  From graphing to table design, color to typography best practices, you’ll find these video tutorials full of tips, tricks and tidbits that you’ll be using long after the pollen rinses away and your antihistamine goes back in the drawer.

And, just in case you’ve been fogged over, we launched a new page on our site a few weeks ago, Design Principles. If designing from the human perspective interests you, you’ll find this a valued extension to your knowledgebase.  

Achoo! (That is, here’s to you!)

[Insert witty opening here].

You see? In principle, when writing a blog post, I know it draws you (the reader) in to continue reading by starting with a story or something smart or a joke. Don’t overwhelm people right from the get-go. Start with metaphor or phrase that relates to the article.

That introduction relates to what I’m really interested in talking about: principles. We’re launching an exciting new resource today, and it has to do with principles, design principles that is. These resource will remind you to do things like use gradients appropriately or provide instruction. Their goal is to direct your design towards information presentation that focuses on the human element.

Engineers start with technology. MBAs start with funding. Designers start with people. The trick is to get interdisciplinary teams to raise their collective I.Q. by working in the overlap of those three areas. That’s where innovation flourishes.Moggridge

At Juice, we start with people and great consideration for that overlap. Therefore, we’re not only about what information to show but also how to show it. And behind those two basic ideas is an awful lot of thinking > developing > learning > and iteration. Through that process we’ve gathered a (rather long) list of principles that inform our decisions, and we hope it can help you with yours too. Rather than trying to be sure your application supports all principles, approach it more like a stack of flash cards and pull out the relevant ones. With experience, you’ll realize you’re doing these things naturally and understanding the drivers of design thinking is invaluable to introduce objectivity into application design.

There are two parts to this:

1. View the list and explore the content on our Design Principles page.
2. Engage in discussion on our Quora Design Principles Board.

This list will likely grow and shrink over time through the refinement process. The descriptions of each principle definitely will. Our goal is not to be exhaustive, but helpful.

There is a slight catch. So far, we’ve only fully a few of the many principles, which means we have a long way to go. We’re going to embrace process on this one with what might appear to be a (very intentional) turtle’s pace. Still, we’ve made the titles as concretely informative as we could before filling out all their content. Feel free to to run (err walk) right along side us or check in every now and then to evaluate your projects against the list. If you find these helpful or would like to share your experience or opinion on any of them we invite you to engage in the discussion, vote up and down the principles you find more or less useful. Share your insights why. Let us know which one you’d like to see next. Keep us honest, and the visualization community successful. Happy designing.

How do you find the best of the best? The National Football League holds a combine every year where the top college football players run, jump and press. We took that data and put it into our leaderboard visualization to let you explore these physical freaks.

A leaderboard lets you focus on exceptions; the best and worst performers across different characteristics. Everyone or everything that’s not superlative (or lousy) is available but not emphasized.

By looking across multiple characteristics you can see one person’s strengths and weaknesses. Here’s a quick overview of how it works.

Or jump in and try it out with your own data. One note: this visualization requires IE 9 or higher or Safari/Chrome/Firefox.

We’re working on a revamp of the popular chart chooser that would include more tools like this so let us know what you think.