In this research we explore how analyst-constructed visualisations of themes
in document collections can act as both a communicative product and an
exploratory, insight-generating process. Our aim is to employ visual
storytelling to create new visualisation and diagramming techniques for
summarising information from a variety of sources. Presented here are the
results of a pilot study which compares two visualisation tools, one based on
storyboarding, and the other based on Concept Mapping. We contribute a
storyboarding visualisation that is novel in the context of visual analytics
and intelligence analysis, and is built around the concept of storytelling.
The results from our study imply that it performs similarly to a more
established technique like Concept Mapping in terms of the relevance of
information recorded, but it was preferred by participants when they were
required to infer meaning from the visualisations.