Creating a Narrative, Visually

Photo by Vladyslav Cherkasenko on Unsplash

Almost any story can be told through data, where each visual illustrates enough of the narrative for the reader to understand what is happening. Almost like a modernized version of “a picture is worth 1000 words,” except it’s a graph/chart. Very fitting for the current evolution of data visualization.

I have always been fascinated by the Chernobyl incident since I learned about it when I was younger, and my curiosity has recently been reinvigorated after watching the HBO mini-series Chernobyl.

On April 26, 1986, at 1:24 am near Pripyat, Ukraine (Ukrainian SSR at the time), the crew of Chernobyl’s Reactor No. 4 began a safety test to simulate what would happen during a power outage. Between the poorly trained personnel and horrific design flaws, the test turned real. Within 54 seconds, two explosions released highly potent radiation that spread to nearby European countries over time. Wildlife was destroyed, food and water contaminated, and thousands of people developed health issues for years to come.

Arguably the worst aspect of Chernobyl was the reaction of the Soviet government. Citizens didn’t understand the severity of what happened, purely because they weren’t told. Evacuations of Pripyat did not take place until 36 hours after the explosion. Residents were given 50 minutes' notice before over one thousand buses appeared in the city. Many only took a few items with them and were told they’d be back in a few days. They didn’t.

The citizens of Pripyat weren’t the only ones left in the dark, the rest of the world was too. News of the explosion was kept very vague and that the situation was under control. It didn’t take long for neighboring countries to report radioactive clouds, and U.S. satellite images revealed the true extent.

For my first crack at a data story, I wanted to illustrate the effects that this nuclear disaster has, and will continue to have, on the world.

I originally had so many ideas of what I wanted to create, but it’s a lot harder to find data sets on this information than I would have thought. Granted, the Soviets did lie about the incident itself, so I’m sure some data just doesn’t exist, or it’s locked away somewhere.

According to Edward Tuft’s Beautiful Evidence, it is crucial that data is clear and straightforward, with no intention of manipulation. In addition, many people feel the urge to just pick the data that will support or may contradict your message aka cherry-picking. This leads to misleading information and is the beginning a slippery slope.

As far as aesthetics goes, it’s a heavy subject, so nothing bright and obnoxious. Choosing something like pink or orange as the main colors would be off-putting. I’m going to have a lot of data in many of the charts so having a clear, basic font will help not cause a distraction to the audience. I want them to focus on the information I’m presenting, and not the lime-green papyrus font scheme.

I’m going to continue my search for data and start putting some charts together. I’m worried that my story is going to make no sense once I start researching datasets and either can’t find what I’m looking for or have to switch the topic of the chart I already made. Here goes nothing!