Data stories shaped in real time by audience responses
Towards Audience-Driven Real-Time Data Storytelling
Human-Computer Interaction
Summary
Sometimes when people share data stories, the audience just watches quietly. This paper shows how the story can change based on what the audience answers in real time. The authors created a system where the presenter prepares a branching story with questions, and the audience’s answers guide which parts of the story get told next. This makes the story fit what the audience cares about and understands.
What this means in practice
- •For public speakers: Shape live presentations dynamically to audience interests and knowledge using real-time feedback on mobile devices.
- •For conference organizers: Enable interactive sessions where presenter adapts data narratives in response to attendee input, enhancing engagement.
- •For digital marketing teams: Create interactive campaigns that adjust data-driven story paths based on audience reactions to optimize engagement.$Commercial implications: Allows selling interactive marketing tools that customize content flows for targeted audience segments using live data.
Authors
Angelica Lo Duca
Abstract
This paper introduces the concept of Audience-Driven Real-Time Data Storytelling (ADRDS), a framework that utilizes participatory and social sensing to enable audiences to actively shape the presentation of data stories. At its core, ADRDS employs a pre-authored decision tree, where the presenter defines the data story through a branching three-act arc (setup, conflict, and resolution). Each node contains a question, branching rules, thresholds for coverage, consensus, and confidence intervals, as well as one or more potential calls to action (CTAs). Audience members connect to the ADRDS framework via a URL on their mobile devices and answer questions in real time. ADRDS evaluates responses against the decision tree in real-time, following strong branches when thresholds are satisfied or activating fallback paths when signals are inconclusive. ADRDS then selects the final action consistent with the traversed path and the audience's demonstrated readiness, subject to fairness safeguards. ADRDS transforms presentations of data stories into audience-shaped decision processes, where live data actively drives the narrative. This work paves the way towards a new form of data storytelling, where the final data story depends on the audience's background and interests.