About Us

The Data Storytelling research team of HKUST VisLab is dedicated to exploring storytelling techniques for communicating data-driven insights with visualizations. Our research interests are wide-ranging and include the investigation of novel techniques in data-driven storytelling and the development of authoring tools or automatic approaches to generate narrative visualizations. As we delve into these topics, we aim to bridge the gap between the complex world of data analytics and the intuitive realm of human communication. At the core of our research lies the belief that data storytelling is not only about presenting numbers and facts but also about crafting engaging narratives that resonate with the audience. By exploring innovative visualization techniques and narrative structures, we strive to create a powerful medium that simplifies complex data insights, making them approachable and relatable to a wide range of audiences.

News

  • Congrats to Wenchao Li for successfully defending his PhD thesis titled Interactive Visualization Systems for Narrative-Driven Data Exploration and Communication!
  • Congrats to Xian Xu for successfully defending her PhD thesis titled Data-driven Storytelling Videos: Cinematic Guidelines and Design Space!
  • One paper was accepted in ACM UIST! Wake up static text with deformation :D
  • One paper was accepted in IEEE VIS! Check out evaluation of different explainations for poorly designed vis.
  • Emordle was accepted in IEEE TVCG! Create your own animated wordle and convey emotions better.
  • Four papers were accepted in ACM CHI!
  • One paper was accepted in PacificVis! Check out the design of 3D data videos.
  • One paper about misinformative vis was accepted in EuroVis!
  • Articles

    All
    Design Patterns/Guidelines
    Designing & Evaluation
    Authoring/Generation

    2023

    Wakey-Wakey: Animate Text by Mimicking Characters in a GIF

    Liwenhan Xie, Zhaoyu Zhou, Kerun Yu, Yun Wang, Huamin Qu, Siming Chen
    UIST 2023.

    Why Change My Design: Explaining Poorly Constructed Visualization Designs with Explorable Explanations

    Why is AI not a Panacea for Data Workers? An Interview Study on Human-AI Collaboration in Data Storytelling

    Is It the End? Guidelines for Cinematic Endings in Data Videos

    Xian Xu, Aoyu Wu, Leni Yang, Zheng Wei, Rong Huang, David Yip, Huamin Qu

    2022

    Misinformed by Visualization: What Do We Learn From Misinformative Visualizations?

    Leo Yu-Ho Lo, Ayush Gupta, Kento Shigyo, Aoyu Wu, Enrico Bertini, Huamin Qu

    From 'Wow' to 'Why': Guidelines for Creating the Opening of a Data Video with Cinematic Styles

    2021

    Explore Mindfulness Without Deflection: A Data Art Based on the Book of Songs

    A Design Space for Applying the Freytag’s Pyramid Structure to Data Stories

    Leni Yang, Xian Xu, Xingyu Lan, Ziyan Liu, Shunan Guo, Yang Shi, Huamin Qu, Nan Cao

    Explaining with Examples Lessons Learned from Crowdsourced Introductory Description of Information Visualizations

    Applying Machine Learning Advances to Data Visualization: A Survey on ML4VIS

    InfoColorizer: Interactive Recommendation of Color Palettes for Infographics

    Linping Yuan, Ziqi Zhou, Jian Zhao, Yiqiu Guo, Fan Du, Huamin Qu

    Augmenting Sports Videos with VisCommentator

    Zhutian Chen, Shuainan Ye, Xiangtong Chu, Haijun Xia, Hui Zhang, Huamin Qu, Yingcai Wu
    Best Paper Honorable Mention

    2020

    Improving Engagement of Animated Visualization with Visual Foreshadowing

    DancingWords: Exploring Animated Word Clouds to Tell Stories

    Xinhuan Shu, Jiang Wu, Xinke Wu, Hongye Liang, Weiwei Cui, Yingcai Wu, Huamin Qu
    Best Paper Honorable Mention

    Narrative Transitions in Data Videos

    Junxiu Tang, Lingyun Yu, Tan Tang, Xinhuan Shu, Lu Ying, Yuhua Zhou, Peiran Ren, Yingcai Wu
    Proceedings of the IEEE Visualization Conference (VIS). 2020. Short Paper, Collaborated Project

    2019

    Towards Automated Infographic Design: Deep Learning-based Auto-Generation of Extensible Timeline

    Narvis: Authoring Narrative Slideshows for Introducing Data Visualization Designs

    Designing Narrative Slideshows for Learning Analytics

    Qing Chen, Zhen Li, Ting-Chuen Pong, Huamin Qu

    2018

    Storytelling and Visualization: An Extended Survey

    Chao Tong, Richard Roberts, Rita Borgo, Sean Walton, Robert S Laramee, Kodzo Wegba, Aidong Lu, Yun Wang, Huamin Qu, Qiong Luo, Xiaojuan Ma
    Information 2018.

    2016

    Animated Narrative Visualization for Video Clickstream Data

    SIGGRAPHAsia 2016.

    A Guided Tour of Literature Review: Facilitating Academic Paper Reading with Narrative Visualization

    Current Members

    Alumni

    Yifang Wang
    Northwestern
    Aoyu Wu
    Harvard
    Qing Chen
    Tongji Univ.
    Nan Cao
    Tongji Univ.

    Collaborators