Storytelling with Data – Designing Persuasive Visual Narratives

Workshop Title: Storytelling with Data – Designing Persuasive Visual Narratives (3 hours)

Shaurabh Anand, Gopi Sankar G

This workshop explores how organisations, researchers, students, and community members can transform data analysis into persuasive, audience-centred narratives. Across sectors, whether in research, policy, business, or civic initiatives, data is routinely used to understand problems, inform decisions, and evaluate outcomes. Yet valuable insights often fail to influence action because they are not communicated clearly or compellingly. This session introduces storytelling with data as a structured approach to converting analysis into coherent visual arguments that resonate with specific audiences.

The workshop engages with three key themes: narrative framing, visualization choice, and clarity in communication. Rather than treating visualization as a purely technical skill, the workshop positions itself within broader conversations in data visualization for presenting compelling stories. At the end of the workshop, the participants will be able to frame and select visualization and design clear, audience-oriented data stories.

Structure and Design

The workshop is organised into three progressive segments.

1. Framing the Story (45 minutes) The workshop will begin with a discussion on what entails storytelling with data. Through discussions and illustrative examples, the participants will learn about purpose, and desired takeaway from storytelling.

2. Developing a storyboard (60 minutes): Using a given data source, participants model raw data into a storyboard, moving from question to structured narrative.

3. Choosing the Visual Form (75 minutes) This segment focuses on selecting appropriate visualization techniques for numerical data. Instead of surveying many tools, we examine decision logic: comparison, trend, distribution, or relationship? Participants work with a provided dataset to identify a central message and design one visualization that best communicates it. They write a two-sentence narrative explaining the insight. A structured peer-critique exercise follows, encouraging reflection on clarity and audience alignment.

Interactive and Engaging Elements

The workshop relies on collaborative hands-on exercises, peer critique, and discusison. Participants actively construct and revise a data story rather than passively observing demonstrations.

Intended Audience

Anyone interested in data visualization.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the session, participants will learn to:

Understand storytelling with data Select visualization types aligned with communicative purpose Design clear, audience-oriented data stories

Why This Topic Matters to us

In our experience working with data and teaching others to use it, we often see strong analysis lose impact at the stage of communication. This workshop responds to that gap. Effective data storytelling strengthens arguments by making their logic, evidence, and implications visible and accessible. In a world saturated with information, the ability to communicate insight responsibly and persuasively is essential across fields and professions.