This collection of cards came out of a workshop on Data-Driven Storytelling in Dagstuhl, 2016. We investigated how data-driven stories work, how they are different from other types of narratives and also other types of data visualization.

Each card represents a specific narrative technique, pattern or "trick" you can apply to effect flow, empathy, argumentation… in a data story. We tried to find a representative example for each technique, but of course, there will be many different instantiations of the same underlying principle. These patterns are also not mutually exclusive — rather, they can often be combined to great effect.

Our motivation was to provide practitioners with inspiration and structure while coming up with new data stories. On the other hand, from a research point of view, the cards can help illuminate bigger patterns and recurring themes in storytelling, thus helping to map the possibility space of data-driven narratives.

There is a publication on the way which will detail the academic perspective on this project. Find a preprint version here.

We very much welcome your input and experience reports. In case you have any questions, or have successfully used the cards, or have suggestions and ideas, feel free to drop us a line at mail@napa-cards.net.

Contributors (in alphabetical order): Lyn Bartram, Jeremy Boy, Paolo Ciuccarelli, Steven Drucker, Yuri Engelhardt, Ulrike Koeppen, Moritz Stefaner, Barbara Tversky, Jo Wood.

Thanks to Schloß Dagstuhl for hosting the workshop, and thanks to Sheelagh Carpendale, Nicholas Diakopoulos, Nathalie Henry Riche and Christophe Hurter for bringing us all together!