Data stories enmesh narratives, data and supporting visuals in order to inspire and creatively underpin a call for action by the story’s targeted audience. The power and impact of data stories draw on the general tendency and preference of people to understand and process information through stories/narratives — this effectively supplements and enhances prevalent and conventional ways to present data insight rooted in numbers and statistics.

This data storytelling toolkit is an output of the Data Storytelling for Digital Research Infrastructure project (September 2024–March 2027) led by the UCL Social Data Institute, which addresses skills as one of the strategic priorities of UKRI Digital Research Infrastructure (DRI). Through in-person workshops conducted across the UK on Concept and Practice of Data Storytelling and Python for Data Storytelling, the project equips (early career) researchers with skills in data storytelling communication and data visualisation.

This toolkit is an open-access supplementary learning material that can serve as a companion for ongoing data storytelling efforts for researchers who have experience with data storytelling and/or for participants of the aforementioned workshops. The toolkit outlines and exemplifies main building blocks for data storytelling, including:

1. Creating an audience profile for a data story
2. Main elements of a data story
3. Usefulness of outliers for inspiring / crafting data stories