Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic

Write out speaking notes with the important points you want to make with each slide. Practice what you want to say out loud to yourself: this ignites a different part of the brain to help you remember your talking points. It also forces you to articulate the transitions between slides that sometimes trip up presenters. Give a mock presentation to a friend or colleague.

When you have just a number or two that you want to communicate: use the numbers directly.

Using a table in a live presentation is rarely a good idea. As your audience reads it, you lose their ears and attention to make your point verbally.

While tables interact with our verbal system, graphs interact with our visual system, which is faster at processing information.

Slopegraphs can be useful when you have two time periods or points of comparison and want to quickly show relative increases and decreases or differences across various categories between the two data points.

Light elements on a dark background can create a stronger contrast but are generally harder to read.