From fairy tales to inspiring speeches, stories are powerful message conveyors. As social beings, our brains have evolved to remember narratives, as they used to be important ways of sharing news, keeping historical records and imparting values within communities. Stories are not only useful to remember information, they also facilitate the understanding of new information building on our experiences. RECEIPT’s data visualization expert Maarten van Meersbergen wrote a piece on why this can improve the uptake of scientific findings.

In research, collected data can be exciting and meaningful, but when it is presented as spreadsheets or bullet points it can be difficult to find or understand its importance. That’s where organising data in visual stories becomes a powerful ally. Adapting the storyline to the level of expertise of the reader allows for a better understanding of the scientific findings and promote their uptake by the targeted audience.

RECEIPT is creating storylines to explore and explain how climate disasters happening on the other side of the glob can affect Europe. We provide a common theme of climate change events in remote areas, and are letting the user explore the areas of the globe and/or the sectors they are most interested in. This makes our storylines flexible to the needs of many different users.

Interested on visual storytelling for data science? Discover Maarten’s piece on the Netherlands eScience center website.

Published on : 27 September 2021