New Book: Data-Driven Storytelling

There’s a new book about data visualization and data-driven storytelling about to hit bookshelves. Data-Driven Storytelling, edited by Nathalie Henry Riche, Christophe Hurter, Nicholas Diakopoulos, and Sheelagh Carpendale is an edited volume originating from a weeklong data storytelling conference at Schloss-Dagstuhl in western Germany in February 2016.

The conference itself was amazing and I was fortunate enough to attend and hang out with an incredible group of people (while there, I interviewed Steve Drucker, Dominikus Baur, and Xaquin Gonzalez Veira for the podcast). What’s perhaps even more impressive is that we pulled together this book; well, really, the editors pulled the book together, the rest of us just (usually grudgingly) wrote our chapters.

I haven’t seen the final product, but I’ve seen drafts of a few of the chapters (I’m a co-author on two) and they contain really interesting insights into how to organize, create, and tell stories with data. As you might suspect, there was some tension (and maybe not enough conversation) about how to define “storytelling”, which, as you may know, I have my own views about. I’m thankful not only to the editors for doing an extraordinary job pulling this whole thing together, but also to my various co-authors for helping write some amazing chapters about organizations working with data and data visualization and another chapter on how to focus on your audience.

Anyways, here’s a summary of the book and the table of contents.

Key Features of the Book

This book presents an accessible introduction to data-driven storytelling. Resulting from unique discussions between data visualization researchers and data journalists it offers an integrated definition of the topic, presents vivid examples and patterns for data storytelling, and calls out key challenges and new opportunities.

Unique source of knowledge resulting from discussions between data visualization researchers and data journalists
State-of-the-art in data journalism and data visualization
Research agenda and opportunities for data-driven storytelling and visualization research
Curated compilation of real examples and discussion of best practices

Chapters

Introduction | Nathalie Henry Riche, Christophe Hurter, Nicholas Diakopoulous, and Sheelagh Carpendale
Storytelling in the Wild: Implications for Data Storytelling | Barbara Tversky
Exploration and Explanation in Data-Driven Storytelling |Alice Thudt, Jagoda Walny, Theresia Gschwandtner, Jason Dykes, and John Stasko
Data-Driven Storytelling Techniques: Analysis of a Curated Collection of Visual Stories | Charles D. Stolper, Bongshin Lee, Nathalie Henry Riche, and John Stasko
Narrative Design Patterns for Data-Driven Storytelling | Benjamin Bach, Moritz Stefaner, Jeremy Boy, Steven Drucker, Lyn Bartram, Jo Wood, Paolo Ciuccarelli, Yuri Engelhardt, Ulrike Koppen, and Barbara Tversky
Watches to Augmented Reality: Devices and Gadgets for Data-Driven Storytelling | Bongshin Lee, Tim Swyer, Dominikus Baur, and Xaquin Gonzalez Veira
From Analysis to Communication: Supporting the Lifecycle of a Story | Fanny Chevalier, Melanie Tory, Bongshin lee, Jarke van Wijk, Giuseppe Santucci, Marian Dork, and Jessica Hullman
Organizing the Work of Data-Driven Visual Storytelling | Christina Elmer, Jonathan Schwabish, and Benjamin Wiederkehr
Communicating Data to an Audience | Steven Drucker, Samuel Huron, Robert Kosara, Jonathan Schwabish, and Nicholas Diakopoulos
Ethics in Data-Driven Visual Storytelling | Nicholas Diakopoulos
Evaluating Data-Driven Stories and Storytelling Tools | Fereshteh Amini, Mathew Brehmer, Gordon Bolduan, Christina Elmer, and Benjamin Wiederkehr