Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Narration and exploration in visualization

What should we emphasize when designing a visualization? Should we explain the data, perhaps through a narration, or should we let readers explore the data at will? Those are questions you probably get regularly if you work in this field.

The answer is quite obvious: if your graphic is a digital and interactive one, why shouldn't you combine narration with exploration? To see some good examples of hybrid visualizations, I'd encourage you to take a look at Kiln, a company that designed graphics for the recent Panama Papers investigation. I like their Ship Map and their Digital Divide projects, which bring to mind Hans Rosling's style.