Character-Centric Literary Visualisations

Best viewed in the latest version of Firefox!
Welcome to a collection of interactive literary visualisations for casual readers. This project explores how visual techniques can enhance the analysis, understanding, and discussion of fictional characters across a range of genres. Developed during my PhD candidature, these visualisations span two studies: a foundational study evaluating character analysis tasks, and a second study exploring enhancements for casual reader engagement.

Study I Visualisations

Visualisations developed to understand the pipeline to create a character-centric literary visualisation technique. The anonymised versions were used in a task-based evaluation to determine suitability of the visual encodings for completing general character analysis tasks.

Popular Novels

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Popular Novels Anonymised

Visualisation A

Visualisation B

Study II Visualisations

Aesthetic and functional enhancements made to the original layout, including the addition of plot and genre elements, highlighted quotes, full text access, toggle-able simplified view, and more! These were used in a book-club scenario focus group evaluation to determine how the visualisations can be integrated into casual book discussions.

Detective Fiction Novels

A Study in Scarlet

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Science Fiction Novels

The Stainless Steel Rat

The Time Traders

Novel Dialogues GitHub Repository

CSV Datasets of Character Dialogue Exchanges

PhD Design Artefacts by Natalie House © 2025. Please do not reproduce without permission.