Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic

Articulate what will happen if no action is taken or no change is made. Discuss potential options for addressing the problem. Illustrate the benefits of your recommended solution. Make it clear to your audience why they are in a unique position to make a decision or drive action.

Write the headlines first When it comes to structuring the flow of your overall presentation or communication, one strategy is to create the headlines first. Think back to the storyboarding that we discussed in Chapter 1. Write each headline on a Post-it note. Play with the order to create a clear flow, connecting each idea to the

next in a logical fashion. Establishing this sort of structure helps ensure that there is a logical order for your audience to follow. Make each headline the title of your presentation slides or the section title in a written report.

The most beautiful data visualization runs the risk of falling flat without a compelling narrative to go with it.

Think about what words need to be present. In the case when something will be sent

around without you there to explain it, it’s especially important to make the “so what” of each slide or section clear. You’ve probably experienced when this has not been done well:

It is important to have action titles (not descriptive titles) for this to work well.

next slide:

graph on

First, we’ll look at an approach you should be familiar with by now: using preattentive attributes to emphasize a single line at a time. After that, we’ll look at a couple of views that separate the lines spatially. Then finally, we’ll look at a combined approach that leverages elements of these first two strategies.

maximum) are the same so that the audience can quickly compare the highlighted series across the various graphs.

attribute numbers to the change from Before to After on the negative end of the scale (“Bored” and “Not great”) or from right to left, doing the same for the positive end of the scale (“Kind of interested” and “Excited”). In the simple bar graph shown

categories ordered in a certain way, a slopegraph won’t