Geo-Storylines: Integrating Maps into Storyline Visualizations

Area of Science:

• Information Visualization
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Geospatial Data Analysis

Background:

• Storyline visualizations effectively display evolving relationships over time.
• Existing Storyline visualizations lack explicit integration of geospatial information.
• Real-world relationships often have a spatial component, such as travel or campaign locations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce Geo-Storylines, a novel collection of visualization designs integrating geospatial context into Storyline visualizations.
• To explore different strategies for compositing time and space in visualizations.
• To derive and evaluate design spaces for integrating maps into Storylines.

Main Methods:

• Conducted a sketching workshop with 11 participants to define a design space for map integration in Storylines.
• Analyzed design strengths and weaknesses regarding legibility and scalability for multiple relationships.
• Performed a controlled study with 18 participants comparing three promising techniques: Time Glyphs, Coordinated Views, and Map Glyphs across five geospatial tasks and two map complexities.
• Collected informal feedback from data journalism domain experts.

Main Results:

• Identified a design space for integrating maps into Storylines through a participant workshop.
• Coordinated Views were found to be a highly effective and preferred technique across various geospatial tasks and map complexities.
• Performance of visualization techniques varied depending on the specific geospatial task.

Conclusions:

• Geo-Storylines offer enhanced methods for visualizing spatio-temporal relationships.
• Coordinated Views provide a robust and user-preferred approach for integrating geospatial data into storyline visualizations.
• The developed design space and evaluated techniques advance the field of information visualization for complex relational and spatial data.