Interactive data comics for communicating medical data to the general public: A study of engagement and ease of understanding

We are experiencing a health literacy crisis worldwide, which has alarming effects on individuals’ medical outcomes. This poses the challenge of communicating key information about health conditions and their management in a way that is easily understood by a general audience. In this paper, we propose the use of data-driven storytelling to address this challenge, in particular through interactive data comics. We developed an interactive data comic that communicates cancer data. A between-group study with 98 participants was carried out to evaluate the data comic’s ease of understanding and engagement, compared to a text medium that captures the same information. The study reveals that the data comic is perceived to be more engaging, and participants have greater recall and understanding of the data within the story, compared with the text medium. • An interactive data comic was created for communicating cancer data to non-experts. • A user study was carried out, comparing the data comic to a text medium. • The data comic was perceived to be considerably more engaging than the text medium. • The data comic was associated with greater recall and understanding of the data. • Self-assessed likelihood to attend screening upon reading the comic was very high.