A picture is worth a thousand data points. At least that is what we say in the sphere of data analytics. As the world is becoming increasingly reliant on data to extract insights across major industry verticals, we see a growing demand for effective analysis and visualization.
This is where data storytelling comes in. You see, visualizing data is not just converting numbers into charts, it is the art of narrating complex information effortlessly and effectively. As such, each visual element in our presentation or dashboard should be exact, deliberate, and meaningful. After all, even the best information is useless if it is not communicated effectively.
“Data visualization is the language of decision making. Good charts effectively convey information. Great charts enable, inform, and improve decision making.” — Dante Vitagliano
As the quote above sums up, the utilization of data boils down to decision making. Essentially, data is used to identify and answer pertinent business questions that can enhance the efficacy of business decisions and policies. Therefore, it is essential that our analysis is business-centric and focuses on providing actionable insights. By visualizing data effectively, decision-makers can quickly grasp trends, patterns, and correlations, enabling them to make data-driven choices that lead to improved outcomes.
In my experience of working as a data and business analyst, I have learned some valuable lessons that have helped me to excel at my role. In this article, I will be sharing some of the critical best practices of data visualization, and help you navigate through the pitfalls that can hinder effective data communication. Here are 5 effective principles to communicate data.
The Audience Whisperer: Harnessing the Strength of Audience Insight
When it comes to data analytics, there is no one size fits all. The success of your data visualization hinges on your ability to understand your audience and tailor your visualization. It is like being a coach who knows the strengths and weaknesses of each player on their team, and they tailor different strategies and training regiments to optimize the performance of each player.
When it comes down to identifying your target audience, it is important to understand the roles, responsibilities, and preferences of each stakeholder. This will help you align your visualizations to their specific needs. Moreover, it is imperative that we gauge their familiarity with data analysis concepts before proceeding. By tailoring your analysis to match their data literacy, you can ensure that they do not get lost in a sea of technical verbiage.
Once you have gathered these insights, it is time to put your creativity to the test and design visualizations that hit the bullseye. Knowing the end-users and their preferences in this scenario can help you create visualizations that not only inform but delight.
Digifloat prides itself on their ability to identify and deliver on expectations of their intended audience. We do this by diving deep into our client’s industry, background, and objectives to shape our data visualization strategies and drive compelling insights.
Simplify and Focus: Unleashing the Power of Clarity
In the realm of data visualization, simplicity is a superpower. When we are presenting our data, we must ensure that our report is easily digestible for our audience. This is where simplifying and focusing plays a pivotal role.
As a starting point, decluttering your reports is key. Just like tidying up a messy room, it is crucial to remove any excess elements that do not contribute to the core message. Extraneous information, excessive data points, or unnecessary decorative elements can obscure the data and confuse your audience. Therefore, it is important to identify what elements serve your audience and strip away the non-essentials.
Decluttering is not everything though. It is also about highlighting the key insights that support data-driven decision making. Think of it as shining a spotlight on the most critical data elements and presenting that information in an impactful and concise manner. Remember less is more when it comes to representing data.
As an example, let us say we are looking at sales data for 3 salespeople. Let us say we want to communicate that Jerry has the lowest sales out of the three. While all three charts below represent the same information, Option B does the best job of communicating this information because it shows a drastic change in sales, thus getting our point across.
This varying differences in the example above (Figure 2) is a result of y-axis manipulation. By changing the way, we represent information in the y-axis, we can have a significant impact on our visualization. Therefore, it is a good practice to find the most impactful way to present your information.
At Digifloat, we believe that the true power of data lies in its ability to provide clear and actionable insights. Our team of experts empower our clients to cut through the noise, see the essence of their data, and unlock the transformative potential within.
Beyond Numbers: The Art of Data Storytelling
Data has the power to tell captivating stories, and we as data visualizers are the poets who narrate these ballads. By incorporating the art of storytelling in our practice, we hold the power to engage and captivate our audience, making the data come alive with meaning.
A compelling story has a structure, and your data visualizations should too. Hence, it is important that we craft a narrative with a clear beginning, middle, and end. To start, we can begin by arranging our visual elements in a logical flow that follows the narrative we want to convey. Using hierarchy and visual cues to direct the viewer’s gaze can ensure that they do not miss critical insights that we want to highlight. By adhering to this structure and guideline we can establish a sense of coherence in our visualizations.
Sometimes being creative in your approach can go a long way. For example, let’s say we’re examining crude oil price changes over a span of 3 years.
Presenting this information in the shapes of oil barrels (Figure 3) is a splendid example of how we can incorporate creativity into our visualizations. By ensuring that we adhere to certain design principles such as relating the barrel’s height to the price, maintaining consistency in the barrel’s size, we can go above and beyond the basic bar or stack graphs.
Digifloat’s skilled team of data storytellers go beyond visualizing data; we craft stories that engage and captivate our audiences. By combining our expertise in data analytics with the art of storytelling, we create narratives that resonate.
Maintain Consistency: The Secret Ingredient to Visual Harmony
Just like a symphony needs harmony and coherence, visualizations need consistency to convey information effectively. Maintaining a consistent visual style helps our audience easily identify different elements and draw comparisons effortlessly.
Imagine if each chart had its own unique color palette and font style. It would be like reading a book with ever-changing fonts and colors, leaving your audience utterly dazed and eternally confused. One aspect of consistency is going for uniform aesthetics. In this pseudo-egalitarian approach, we ensure that we use a consistent color scheme, font type, and design elements across all our charts and graphs. By doing this, we create a sense of visual unity, making it easier for our audience to make meaningful comparisons.
Another critical aspect lies in labeling. Ensuring that our labels (such as axes, legends, annotations.) follow a consistent format and placement adds to the overall visual clarity and design coherence. This makes it easier for our audience to understand the context of our data and interpret the visualizations correctly. Such is the case in the example below (Figure 4). It is important to notice the visual appeal of the dashboard simply because of the consistency in the way the information is being presented. Consistency in visual placement, matching coloring schemes, gridline alignment all play a pivotal role in making this dashboard effective in communicating data.
By enforcing these practices, we can create a visual experience that is not only aesthetically pleasing but also enhances the impact of our analysis. Consistency acts as a guiding hand for our audience to navigate through our analysis and absorb information effortlessly.
Consistency is key, it is what we say at Digifloat. We take immense pride in providing visualizations with a consistent framework that harmonizes colors, fonts, and design elements across the board. We enable effective data communication and fuel data-driven decision making.
Interactive Visualizations: Igniting the Spark of Data Discovery
Gone are the days of static charts and one-way communication. Interactivity with visualizations reigns supreme in the world of data analytics. By embracing interactivity, we facilitate data discovery on a whole new level. We allow our audience to dive deeper into the data, uncover hidden insights, and enhance their decision-making power.
Incorporating interactive elements in our visualizations is key to empowering our audience to take charge of their data journey. Whether it is adding slicers or sliders or clicking on chart elements to filter data subsets, interactivity allows users to extract information that matters most to them. It is like turning passive observers into active participants, thereby fostering a sense of curiosity and exploration.
Drill down and filtering options are great ways to boost the interactivity of your report. By providing the ability to peel back layers according to specific time periods, regions, or categories, it empowers the audience to uncover granular details that may have gone unnoticed before. As we can see in the COVID Vaccine dashboard (Figure 4), the filtering option provides a straightforward way for our audience to extract ultra specific information by selecting either the country, vaccine approach, or clinical stage, or all the above.
Similarly, interactive legends can provide significant value addition to your report. Interactive legends provide users with the ability to toggle on or off specific categories or variables, helping them focus on the data aspects that are pertinent to them. This best practice also complements our previous principle of Simplify and Focus.
At Digifloat, we understand that static visualizations are boring and can limit data exploration. That is why we leverage the latest technologies and industry best practices to build dynamic dashboards that bring data to life and deliver an immersive user experience.
Mastering Your Craft: Overcoming Challenges for Compelling Insights
As we embark on our journey of harnessing the true power of data visualization, it is imperative that we learn about the treacherous waters that lie ahead. From handling large and complex datasets to overcoming misinterpretation and bias, we must equip ourselves with the knowledge to overcome these obstacles.
Data overload is one of the major challenges faced in data visualization. With large-scale and intricate datasets, it can be overwhelming to extract meaningful insights. The secret lies in finding that fine line between data depth and simplicity in your visualizations. By focusing on the most relevant and impactful information, we can guide our audience through the complexity and present a clear narrative that resonates with them.
Another common pitfall is Misinterpretation and bias. This could severely undermine the credibility of your analysis. Therefore, it is paramount to present data in an unbiased and transparent manner, providing proper context and explanations. It is crucial to note that we must avoid cherry-picking data or using manipulative visual components that skew the narrative. By presenting information objectively and ethically, we nourish trust and enable our audience to make data-driven decisions quickly.
One common challenge is neglecting the perspective of your audience. Understanding the needs of your audience is critical to spearheading an effective analysis. Overestimating or underestimating their data literacy can significantly impact your data communication. By tailoring our visualizations with our intended audience, we can create more engaging and relatable user journeys.
Last but not least, data privacy and security should never be overlooked in the realm of visualizations. Mishandling sensitive or confidential data can have severe consequences. Therefore, it is essential to protect your data by implementing security controls such as data anonymization and aggregations where necessary. It is also a good practice to brush up on data security and governance principles to handle data ethically and ensure legal compliance.
At DigiFloat, we are passionate about providing tailored solutions to help our clients unlock the true potential of their data and drive compelling insights. We foster trust through our collaborative approach, out-of-the-box creativity, and impeccable adherence to the highest standards of data ethics.
Conclusion
In the realm of data analytics, employing best practices is crucial to effectively communicate data and drive meaningful insights. By embracing the aforementioned principles on clarity, simplicity, relevance, interactivity, and storytelling, we can create clean and crisp visualizations that captivate and inform our audiences as well as allow our data to shine.
By incorporating these practices into our workflow, we can unlock the true power of data, enabling better decision-making and instigating transformative outcomes. So, let us embrace these principles and embark on a journey of impactful data communication through compelling visualizations.
Author
Waleed Asif
Junior Consultant