- Okay, hi everyone in the room.
Thank you for the introduction.
And this work was collaborated with
Harvey Dingwall and my supervisor, Benjamin Bach,
and in this work, we are presenting a workshop
we conducted for teaching data visualization
and storytelling with data comics.
Data is just a collection of numbers,
until you turn it into messages or a story.
Showing you a report or a dashboard,
can be overwhelming without adding
a narrative to the data.
Hence those things work present
great insight explaining what happened,
why it is important, and how you can use it
turn into something easy to understand and actionable,
like videos and live presentations.
In 2D space, we can present infographic and
annotative chart, with supporting of
linearity of narration.
Data comics allow another to combine the best of data,
story, visualization in one single format.
Back in the days, in 2016, when Bach had taught,
present a paper on
"Telling Stories About Dynamic Work, with Graphic Comics,"
which took a first look
at how graphic comics cam convey changes
occurring in dynamic networks.
Since then, data comics have applied
to wider data types more than dynamic networks.
Also, we're working with artist, and conducted
several data comic workshop.
And then, empirical study to develop data comics,
which will be presented this afternoon at two o'clock.
And like the comics in general,
you will see data comics can tell a story,
by showing changes in these panels,
and combine visualization and illustration.
Play ways lay out to manipulate the story line,
and which way explored about data comics design pattern
in current last year.
And this was our first step to exploring supports
for data comic creation.
This form is effective and exciting.
However, create data comics is a quite complex process
and requires lot of skills, such as,
getting messages from data through analysis,
applying effective data visualizations,
communicate message through stories,
present the stories by sketching
and manage the layout,
and vigorous with graphic design experience.
So you imagine, it is a challenge
for one to make data comics.
We define four challenges
by two preceding workshops on data comics
at the University of Edinburgh.
Challenge one, the provided data was appreciated,
but required significant time for participant to understand.
And we found that participant had problem
creating compelling story,
and wanted more guidance on this.
Although we did the visualization sketching session
at the beginning,
participant new to visualizations still had some troubles,
using effective visualizations in their stories.
Designing compelling layout that reflect the story-flow
was not covered enough through the design patterns.
So, this time, a professor from Edinburgh College of Art
ask us to do a workshop with his students.
We found it was a great opportunity to test our methods
and learn from the participant as well.
So case study was a three-week assignment
in an undergraduate course for illustration
at the University of Edinburgh College of Art.
And the course comprised 23 students,
many of whom had experience with classic comics
before workshop.
And in this presentation, we'll show you the methodology
of the workshops and the outcomes.
So assignment asked each student to create
one data comics using using collected,
or founded by themselves.
So comic size were set A3,
allowing comics to be displayed both the screen and imprint.
So course included workshop, group tutorial,
and a final presentation, where students were asked
to reflect on the process and result,
with feedback from peers and tutors.
I want firstly show you some result,
and then go through the methodology.
The results show a surprisingly richness in this topic.
And the way of expanding visualizations,
like the example showing on the screen,
some students blended fact and fiction
to clarify the data visualization.
Like the Sustainable Steve takes us through data
on recycling cups and a frog takes us
through mass extinction.
Some students created visualization designs themselves,
like using the stripe of a zebra as a bar chart,
or creating cocktail glass glyphs to report
on ingredients in soft drinks.
Many student used data comics design patterns including
question and answer, multiple facets,
visualization build-up, zoom,
And here are some examples.
The full list of result can be found on datacomics.net.
Let's look back at the methodologies
and the individuals that we had.
We had three sessions during three weeks.
In the first session, to quickly get into to concept
of data comics and to provide a student
with an idea of all the steps,
we designed a fast-forward data comic workshop,
in which students worked in pairs,
generate rough data comic storyboards.
The fast-forward include six phases
and lasted for three hours.
We starting with an introduction of data, message,
and the visualization and gave an introduction
to the comics, the concept, and the existing examples.
We presented the features of sequence,
presenting time and layout,
inspired by the traditional comics.
Then moved to the process of data comics creating.
Sketching and practice,
this part we asked them to do some simple sketch,
to warm up and introduce them to sketching data,
like draw a bird in three second,
draw a human, draw a home country in 10 seconds.
Eventually, we asked students to draw
seven random rectangles on the paper.
Then number each panel in a logic sequence.
The first comic layout was based
for drawing the story of their last Sunday,
in those seven sequence of rectangles.
After this warm up, we briefly introduced
the notion of visual variables,
and the idea of visual mapping.
To facilitate sketching data, we predefined
the small data samples and the story context.
The step of creating data story, we handed out some
scenario cards and presented the cards randomly.
And we displayed a list of messages
of high-level facts and data literacy,
which we identified in the previous workshops.
Each card described a context,
like street, office,
and a persona like friends, peer, and et cetera.
We also presented a story structure example
of beginning, middle, end,
and a data story example in the form of video.
Students have 30 minutes to create a story,
and then tell story to their neighbor
for self-reflection and feedback.
Story sketching, we introduced some,
on how panels worked in comics,
and examples of design patterns.
Students were asked to draw a draft of data comic,
on one to two A4 sheet.
And finally, exhibition and the presentation.
Comics were set on a wall,
and student walked everyone through their draft,
while getting feedback from the instructors.
For the second session, students were asked,
to collect, or search for data,
according to their own interests.
As we believed a more personal connection
to their data helped telling stories.
This reminded students of the process
in the fast-forward session and aimed to have
a first comic draft for each student, individual comic.
We reminded students to create a persona
and the, would defines a target audience of their comic.
Then the went through the same phases,
as in the fast-forward session.
Sketching, three types of message,
three-minute storytelling in groups,
draft a layout, and provide students
with printed cards of our design patterns,
and students worked on the first rough draft
of their data comics,
followed by a walk around the room to look at
and share their works.
Group meeting were held three days after the second session,
with group of three to five students.
And after students present their draft individually,
instructors and peers offered suggestions and improvement
to the story, visualization, and layout.
And lastly, student put their works on the wall.
They leave feedback to each other on post notes,
and we work through everyone to give feedback.
So what did we find from this workshop?
We found that creating stories,
required student moving back and forth
between the story, visualization, and the data.
During story creation in session two,
students realized that they need more data.
We believe this is an important message
to teach and learn.
But students could effectively organize
the layout and develop clear reading sequence
and apply data patterns.
We found personas and their scenarios
helped students set their language tone,
for data comic style and make informed design decisions,
like color usage and characters.
We also conclude that the fast-forward session one
was very useful and the students told us
that provided data was very helpful.
From the interview and observations,
we obtained further insight into challenges
and suggestions for potential solutions.
In our first workshop, we started
from visualizations, data sets, or stories
on specific topics like immigration, CO2 pollution,
but we found there's two problems with this.
Students struggle coming up with good stories
in the sense of describing the data
and report their insights.
The reason might have been the nature of the data itself,
but more likely the missing personal relationship of data.
We believe it is crucial for storytelling
to choose the data set and choosing data
that matches personal interest and knowledge
to connect and comprehend audience and the messages.
Visualization, to visualizing data effectively,
most comics involved characters and the description
of data context such as the character
for endangered frog trying to comprehend
and come terms to with sixth global mass extinction.
However some comics show a few data visualizations only.
With more time, we think we need to emphasize
that visualizations are complex constructs
that often requires explicit explanation
to guide the audience through an argument,
rather than just illustrating the numbers.
Creating narration,
some students report they had problems
with creating stories.
One obvious solution is to provide more guidance
on how to develop and structure a story.
Experimenting with begin, middle, end,
and providing contexts describing data,
introducing visualization, report on insight
using visualizations, build a climax,
formulate a conclusion and an outlook.
Creating repeating comic drafts,
some students have problem with creating
multiple draft for their storyboard and layouts.
The reasons being the additional workload
of drawing existing panels.
Our possible solution would be
using movable cards or posters
to draw individual panels into them.
Working with design patterns, we found that it's hard
for participant to understand patterns
in that short amount of time,
as patterns are learned through application.
We had planned but couldn't do
more specific exercise patterns due to time constraints.
We encourage short, but precise exercise
with patterns and their own data.
For example, create a build-up for your visualization,
describe change in your data
through annotated transitions,
or split your argument into individual panels,
using multiple explanations.
Participants result were promising,
showing that they actually engage
with three main aspect of data comics,
which are data, visualization, and stories.
Our reflections highlight future improvement
and design constraints for data comics workshops,
and hopefully will pave the way for more workshops
and teaching method for communicating with data.
We'll do more data comic workshops.
If you're interested in drawing a data comic workshop,
we are happy to offer you the materials
and having further discussion.
Thanks for your attention and happy for your attention.
(audience applauds)
(walking on floor)
- [Man in Audience] Thank you, that was really interesting.
I was wondering,
if this is a, if this is a method
for communicating data information to children?
Within your process, do you ever assess
results with children?
Do you see how effective they find this
as a means of communication?
- I'm sorry, can you repeat the last questions?
- [Man in Audience] Yeah, do you, the comics
that you create, do children evaluate them?
Do they say how effective it is as a means
of communicating this?
- You mean the effectiveness of the format
or the methodology?
- [Man in Audience] No the eventual format.
I'm interested in how effective this is,
as a means of communication to children.
Is there anything in your research which looks at that?
- Yes, we have run the studies on the format.
And the study's about comparing comics
and the infographics,
and we are presenting this afternoon at two o'clock.
The results, to be shortly.
The result shows comics are more effective
that infographics in term of accuracy,
in terms of, they answered some questions,
and this shows more, higher, like ratings
in terms of engagement and environment.
Yeah.
- [Moderator] Any other questions?
If not, I have a small question.
And you're talking about how you want
some of the narratives to be more personal
and meaningful to the users.
Are you worried that sometimes they may conflict
with the data you're trying to convey?
- Yes, in the fast-forward session,
because the data was way off for them,
the relationship between the creator and data,
it's not limited to just about their own data.
But, also their interest and how much they know
and how deep they understand about the data.
If, especially for the students.
They are from illustration on the background.
You know, they are not data person.
They don't know how to do data analysis.
In this case, they found very quite challenge
for them to come up with story
or abstracts, message from the data.
Yeah, if they have their own interests,
even they just a topic, they have more idea
about what I want to say through our data
and what's the most interesting point from my data.
- [Moderator] Great, okay, let's thank Zezhong again.
- Thanks.