Decoupling narrative visualizations into components: Helping designers to tell data-driven stories

Abstract

There is a growing interest in presenting data clearly to users. One of the ways to increase engagement and understanding of this data is through narrative visualizations, as they utilize elements that can enhance understanding of the presented data in different ways. In this context, after a literature review on elements of narrative data visualizations, we identified a gap in detailed descriptions of narrative genres. Considering this, we conducted a focus group with professionals in the field, which resulted in the concept called “Navis Structure.” It organizes narrative genres into components for design assistance. In this case, the genres can be single-component or multi-component. Additionally, these genres were classified, considering not only this structure but also visual representation, interaction techniques, freedom of exploration, and narrative approach. Finally, we conducted a workshop with professionals experienced in data visualization to analyze and validate the proposed concept, believing that the findings contribute to advancing the understanding of narrative genres and guide future research in narrative data visualizations.