The visual flow of a narrative is a relatively new concept, but visual storytelling as such is very old. Cavemen already used this technique, with drawings on walls to communicate. Initially I wanted to elaborate the potential of storytelling for interactive information visualizations and big data sets and alongside its potential for modern democracies and knowledge communication. During my project I started however to challenge the understanding of the designer as a storyteller and I ended up with an application which lets the user himself make sense out of his own data using emotions (expressed with sound and colour).
During my research I found a very interesting article which highlights the difference between author and user driven storytelling: Segel and Heer (2010, p.1) provide a framework for storytelling with complex data sets, so called “narrative visualizations”.
[References]
Segel, E. Heer, J. (2010). Narrative Visualization: Telling Stories with Data. Retrieved on Jan 23, 2012, from: http://vis.stanford.edu/files/2010-Narrative-InfoVis.pdf
[Links]
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~jbass/courses/402/402_spr10_sns.htm
http://futureofstorytelling.org/film/?id=12
http://centerforstorytelling.org/
http://uxmag.com/articles/five-steps-to-storytelling-with-data
http://www.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/
http://www.polaine.com/2013/06/storytelling-for-designers/
http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/2011/05/03/narrative-structures-in-data-visualizations-to-improve-storytelling/
http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/7/4307734/framed-interactive-storytelling-in-games
http://usshop.gestalten.com/visual-storytelling.html