Data storytelling is quickly becoming a popular mode for presenting data. It combines text and graphics with data visualizations to guide an audience. Traditionally, people have used tools like PowerPoint and Excel, as well as traditional dashboard and business intelligence platforms, to communicate in this way. But these solutions are limited in their ability to balance the explanatory and exploratory elements of an effective data story.
We are seeing a new category of tool emerge: the data storytelling platform. It emphasizes features such as human-friendly visualizations, integration of text and visuals, narrative flow, connected stories, easy-to-learn authoring, and effortless sharing.
The demand for better data storytelling is being met by a growing collection of data storytelling tools. We evaluated tools that resembled the description above, leaving out more technical tools, visualization libraries, and old-school dashboard/report tools. In the end, we identified four unique categories:
Guided Analytics
These solutions combine exploratory data visualization with explanatory text and graphical elements. The interactive data storytelling applications created by these platforms are intended as an alternative to traditional dashboards and reports.
Juicebox
Juicebox combines modern, data journalism style with exploratory visualizations that are automatically connected to enable analysis. A focus on easy authoring makes Juicebox the only tool in this category that is accessible to non-technical or non-analyst users.
