7

HELP YOUR DATA TELL ITS STORY

Tips for
more effective
visualizations
In today’s data-driven world, how you
show and share your data is critical
in determining its overall impact and
effectiveness. But just putting your data
into charts and graphs isn’t enough.
Effective data visualization takes skill
and storytelling, an eye for detail, and
an understanding of your audience.
Ready to learn the 7 secrets that
can make the difference between
great visualizations and just another
set of charts? Let’s dive in.
1
Start with the story you
WHAT STORY DO YOU
want to tell. WANT TO TELL?
Good visualizations highlight
Whatever your specific goals may be, when you create
relationships between data which
a visualization, you’re really trying to capture a snapshot can tell a powerful story.
of your business – a quick, visual story that will drive
understanding, discussion, and decision-making. To do Outliers illuminate
this, you need to understand the data you’re working deviations from
the norm.
with and determine what story you want to tell. Start by
asking a few questions. Trends indicate
changes over time.

Patterns show
UNDERSTAND YOUR DATA DETERMINE YOUR STORY repeated, consistent
characteristics.

• How many data sets are you • What are the key messages you Correlations
working with and can they want to convey?
communicate
be combined?
• What do you want your audience relationships between
• Is your data qualitative to think, do, or feel? two or more variables.
or quantitative?
• What details will lend credence
• Is there external data you want and support to your story?
to include?

• How accurate or fresh is

your data?
 2
Visualizations

Bar chart Circular area chart Line chart

Choose the right visualization.

Visualizations

Bar chart Circular area chart Line chart

According
Variable width chart
toTableQlik Visualization
or tables with Bar chart horizontal
Advocate Dr. Patrik Lundblad, there
Line chart are four fundamental
types of dataembedded visualizations,
charts
each of which can provide specific Visualizations
insights:
Bar chart Circular area chart Line
Variable width chart Table or tables with Bar chart horizontal
Line chart Bar histogram
embedded charts
COMPARISON COMPOSITION
Scatter plot Comparison DISTRIBUTION RELATIONSHIP
VISUALIZATIONS VISUALIZATIONS VISUALIZATIONS VISUALIZATIONS

Bar histogram Linechart

Line histogram
FREQUENTLY Identifying the highest and
Variable width chart
What
Seeing theembedded
relationship would
Table or tables with
charts youIdentifying commonalities
Bar chart horizontal
Showing correlations
USED FOR Visualizations Relationship Distribution
Scatter plot Scatter plot lowest values Comparison
between data like pointsto thatshow? and outliers and clusters
bubble size Seeing current versus change over time
Seeing the general shape of Identifying outliers
older
Bar values
chart
Bar chart Circular area Identifying
chart
Circular area chart the relative a rangeLine chart
Line chart Scatter plot
Line histogram Ba
difference between parts of
Composition
Spotting trends What would you
Relationship a whole Distribution
Scatter plot like
Scatter toplotshow? Comparison
bubble size ANSWERS Which products sell best? How big is our market share? How many customers exist Is there a correlation between
Waterfall chart
QUESTIONS
Stacked 100% Stacked 100% across a demographic range? advertising spend and sales?
Scatter plot
bar chart area chart Variable width chart Table or tables with BarLin
cha
LIKE
hh chart Table
Table or
or tables
tables with Bar
Bar chart
chart horizontal Composition
How are our sales compared
Line
Line chart
chart
What percentage of the What
How many days would you
late are What’s Distribution
the variation between
embedded charts
chart
embedded
embedded charts
with
charts
horizontal
Relationship
to last year? Visualizations
Scatter plotbudget is going toward like to show?expenses and revenue
customer payments?
bubble size x, y, and z? across regions?
Waterfall chart
Stacked 100% Stacked 100% S
bar chart EXAMPLES areaStacked
chart Barbar chart Stacked
chart area chart Pie chartBar
chart Circular area Composition
Line chart
Bar histogram
histogram
Stacked 100% bar chart
w/subcomponents
Tree map

ons Comparison
Scatter plot

Waterfall chart
Stacked 100% Stacked 100%
ar area chart Stacked bar chart Line Stacked
chart bar chart
area chart Pie chart area chart Line histogram
Tree map
Source: ©A. Abela, 2010. www.ExtremePresentation.com
Line histogram
Stacked 100% bar chart
What would you Line chart w/subcomponents
Rela
Variable width chart
Relationship
Table or tables with Bar chart horizontal
Distribution Scatter plot
embedded charts
Visualizations
like to show? bubble size

ource: ©A. Abela, 2010. www.ExtremePresentation.com Bar chart Circular area chart Stacked bar chart Line chart Scatter
Stacked
Scatter plot
area chart
plot Pie chart Stacked 100% bar chart Tree m
Line chart Composition Bar histogram
w/subcomponents

Scatter plot Comparison

Waterfall
Waterfall chart
chart Stacked 100% Stack
00%
00% Stacked
Stacked 100%
100% bar chart are
Source: ©A. Abela, 2010. www.ExtremePresentation.com
rt
rt area
area chart
chart
Bar histogram Line chart Line histogram
3 Use color – carefully.
Color can be a powerful aid to your visualizations, giving clear cues about relative
value, points of emphasis, and differentiation between data sets. Choose your colors
carefully, though – and more important, sparingly – because color used improperly can
actually cause more confusion than it clears up.

DO: USE DISTINCT COLORS FOR DO: USE DIFFERENT SHADES OF DO: USE THE SAME COLOR FOR
EACH SEGMENT OF A PIE CHART THE SAME COLOR TO DESIGNATE EACH BAR OF A BAR CHART.
NUMEROUS VISUAL ELEMENTS.

DON’T: COLOR SEGMENTS USING DON’T: USE DIFFERENT COLORS DON’T: USE A DIFFERENT COLOR
DIFFERENT SHADES OF THE WHEN DEALING WITH NUMEROUS FOR EACH BAR.
SAME COLOR. GRAPHICAL ELEMENTS.
4 Keep it simple.
With each visualization, ask yourself,
“Which elements here are most important
to the story I’m trying to tell?” Trying to
cram too much into the same visualization
only adds confusion and makes it harder
to spot the insights.
WHOA – SLOW DOWN THERE
We get it, it’s easy to get excited about visualizations.
But it’s possible to get a little too fancy, with too many
bells and whistles. In fact, there’s even a name for the
phenomenon: Chartjunk.

Here are a few of the most common chartjunk offenders:

Making simple visualizations doesn’t have to be complex:

• Limit the number of visualizations in a dashboard
to 9 or less

• Add callouts to emphasize the information that’s

most critical to your message

• Use trend lines to highlight important correlations

between variables, and make your graphs more
scannable

• Use size and color to clearly define unique

data variables

• Avoid decorative fonts, text treatments like

underlines and italics, and visual embellishments
like drop shadows
5 Make it look good.
Design matters. So use a few basic design principles in your visualizations to add clarity
and avoid confusion. For example:

DO: ORDER SLICES FROM DO: USE TRANSPARENT COLORS DO: USE 2D LINES
LARGEST TO SMALLEST so each element remains visible to clearly convey priority and ranking
for easier comparison

DON’T: RANDOMLY ORDER DON’T: USE SOLID COLOR WITH DON’T: USE 3D LINES
THE SLICES OVERLAPPING DATA
6 Show your data at the right scale.
Improper scale can make major insights seem
mediocre and minor deviations feel massive.

To correctly represent the story your data is showing:

• Make sure the scale of your axes accurately reflects the
size of the data you’re visualizing
300
300

200
200

150
150
DO: START Y-AXIS VALUE AT 0

300

200

150
100
100
• Choose the axes that will best represent trends in your 100
data. Will absolute numbers or percentages make
your data clearer? 50
300
50
50
0
200
• Don’t use cropped axes. Always start the Y-axis at 0
00
150
380

100
260

380
380
50
DON’T:
140
TRUNCATE THE SCALE
0

PRO TIP: 260

120
260
Vertical type can 100
380

be difficult to read, 50
so use horizontal 140
140
260

labels whenever 140

possible. 120
120 120

JAN FEB MAR FEB 100

100
100
50

50
50
7 Create visualizations
with your audience
in mind.
In the end, it all comes to down to
knowing what your audience is actually
interested in – and giving them what
they want. Even the clearest, best-
looking visualizations can still be duds
if they’re not helpful or interesting
to the people you’re trying to reach.

Ensure you’re delivering a persuasive story by:

• Highlighting and ordering your information based
on your audience’s interests

• Visualizing your data in an intuitive, conventional

manner to facilitate understanding

• Testing your visualizations with a few trusted

colleagues to ensure the story they’re seeing
is the one you wanted to tell
When done well, a good
visualization transforms
messy, massive data sets into
discussions, understanding,
and well-informed decisions.

By creating visualizations that don’t just present data, but tell
a clear, compelling story, you can explore, explain, and express
critical information and make intelligent decisions that can have
a big impact on your business.
 See the whole story that lives within your data.

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