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Storytelling with Data - Approach | Skills
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The ever increasing computational capacity has enabled us to acquire, process and analyze larger data-sets and information. However, the human memory and attention required to use this data is more limited and has remained relatively constant. Data visualization can enable us to compress data and encode it visually in ways that allows us to aid perceptual and cognitive understanding. However, data visualisation alone is not enough and often we need to try to tell stories through data. Storytelling with data can enable us to move from analysis to synthesis, from numbers to visuals, and from an argument to a story. Operating at this intersection of data, visual and story can help persuade not only through logos (logic) but also through pathos (empathy) and ethos (credibility). In trying to tell compelling data stories, we can empower our selves to engage, communicate and persuade a large and diverse audience. In this talk, I discuss ‘why’ stories work and what we can learn about the art of storytelling from other mediums like oral storytelling, written stories, pictures, comics and movies. I will summarise basic principles that can help us in our crafting journey, as we take the data through the layers of abstraction. The focus would be on unpacking the seven dimensions of creating an engaging data story - Abstraction (data patterns), Representation (visual encoding), Framing & Transition (perspective, focus), Messaging (verbal, text annotation), Flow (arrangement) and Interactivity. Further, creating data stories is a cross disciplinary activity that requires us to operate at the intersection of a visual designer, data scientist and storyteller. It is both a science and an art. So how does one realistically learn these multitude of skills needed to get good at it. I will also discuss ideas about the possible path that practitioners could adopt to learn this craft through sustained practice. ## About the Speaker Amit Kapoor is interested in learning and teaching the craft of telling visual stories with data. He uses storytelling and data visualization as tools for improving communication, persuasion and leadership. He conducts workshops and trainings for corporates, non-profits, colleges, and individuals at narrativeVIZ Consulting. He also teaches storytelling with data as invited guest faculty in academia, both in management context at IIM Bangalore and IIM Ahmedabad and in design context at NID, Bangalore. His background is in strategy consulting in using data-driven stories to drive change across organizations and businesses. He has 15 years of management consulting experience, first with AT Kearney in India, then with Booz & Company in Europe and more recently with startups in Bangalore. He did his B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT, Delhi and PGDM (MBA) from IIM, Ahmedabad. You can find more about him at amitkaps.com and tweet him at @amitkaps
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Storytelling with Data - Approach | Skills
- Storytelling with data Amit Kapoor @amitkaps
- War Stories & Killer Charts
- Joshua Bell
- Rhetoric Logos — Ethos — Pathos
- Humans are pattern-seeking story-telling animals.
- analysis Synthesis numbers Visuals argument Story
- What is a story or a narrative?
- narrative | ˈnærətiv noun: Any account of connected events, presented in a sequence of written words or spoken words or (moving) pictures.
- Events that happen in time Linear Order
- Named people who have to face decisions Personal Decision
- A disruption of a state of equilibrium Change in Context
- A foregrounding of human experience Elevation - Human Emotion
- One human life, closely observed, is everyone’s life. In the particular is the universal. — Roger Ebert
- Storytelling Visualisation
- Think Stories, Not Charts
- Explanatory Growth of the Dual Ecosystem
- Exploratory Where do I live?
- The Joy of Stats Hans Rosling
- How can we create data-stories?
- 80% perspiration, 10% great idea, 10% output. — Simon Rogers
- We’re bad at the why questions, which are often much more interesting. — Amanda Cox
- Bad Aesthetics
- Good Aesthetics
- Above all else, do no harm — Tufte
- Overview first, then zoom & filter, details on demand — Ben Schniederman
- Types of Transitions
- Meaningful Annotation
- Powerful Narration
- There's always room for a story that can transport people to another place. — J.K. Rowling
- More Linear, More Storylike
- Guide the audience
- All stories are indeed structures, but all the best stories are brittle structures. — Tadhg Kelly
- Linear Navigation
- Staging & Animation
- Ensure the interactivity has Affordance. To afford means "to give a clue" — Dan Norman
- How to learn the skills to craft data- stories?
- Art - Craft - Science
- craft | krɑːft noun: An activity involving skill in making or doing things by hand
- How do you learn a craft?
- Novice — Expert
- Start with Basics
- Do Repetitions
- Conduct Deliberate Practice
- Focus on Mastery
- It took me a lifetime — Pablo Picasso
- So, how do you start?
- Learning Styles
- We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are. — Anais Nin
- Understand your own strength
- Learning Data Visualisation & Storytelling
- Start with Charting Simple Datasets
- Learn Basic Charts
- Design Basic Charts
- Expand your Chart Vocabulary
- Visualisation is the transformation of the symbolic into geometric — McCormick et al. 1987
- Think Geometric, Not Charts
- Encode with Shapes and Colour
- Position them out
- Learn the Grammar
- Play with Colour
- Understand Visual Perception
- Develop an Aesthetics Sense
- Learning to See
- The universe is made of stories, not of atoms. — Muriel Rukeyser
- Nature
- Architecture
- Abstract Art
- Sketch ideas
- Visualise Wide Datasets
- Visualise Large Datasets
- Visualise Spatial Datasets
- Move to Layering
- Multi-layered Static Visualisation
- Narrative Visualisation
- Dashboard Visualisation
- Interactive Visualisation
- Tools
- Data is just a clue to the end truth — Josh Smith
- See the world through a data lens
- Aesthetics is deeply associated with emotions and feelings — Giorgio Lupi
- Create beautiful aesthetics
- The data is just part of the story. — Jonathan Harris
- Tell stories that connect
- Closing the Gap
- @amitkaps amitkaps.com