StoryPoint: GenAI-supported domain-specific data story authoring for enterprises
Jonas Gunklach, Elias Mueller, Merlin Knaeble, Alexander Maedche · International Journal of Human-Computer Studies · 2025
In today’s data-driven world, enterprises face the dual challenge of deriving value from vast datasets and effectively communicating insights. While data storytelling is integral for conveying insights, existing authoring tools often fail to fully leverage domain expertise or support the entire storytelling process. This paper introduces StoryPoint, an open-source data story authoring tool that combines domain expertise with Generative AI to dynamically enhance data story creation. We found that enabling domain experts to intuitively visualize data via natural language inputs, supported by automatically generated charts and narratives, helps narrow the gap between visualization and interpretation. To design StoryPoint, we followed a literature-grounded and user-centered design approach. A formative evaluation with eight domain experts reveals StoryPoint’s efficacy in rapid data story prototyping. A summative evaluation, including (i) a small-scale experiment comparing StoryPoint with a benchmark, (ii) a large-scale online experiment with 104 crowdworkers, and (iii) three real-world industry cases, underscores its utility. Our findings highlight that StoryPoint reduces data story creation time by more than 50% compared to the benchmark, receives significantly higher usability ratings, and supports the creation of data stories rating higher in readability, fluency, clarity, and trustworthiness. • StoryPoint - first open-source data story authoring tool for enterprises. • Combining LLMs with domain expertise enhances enterprise data storytelling workflows. • Empirical evaluations with domain experts and real-world use cases demonstrate StoryPoint’s efficiency, usability, and ability to create high-quality data stories. • Evaluation scales for assessing narrative elements and data story quality in enterprise contexts.