Storytelling with Data Quotes

“Especially in live presentation settings, repeated iterations of the same visual, with different pieces emphasized to tell different stories or different aspects of the same story (as demonstrated in Figures 4.7, 4.8, and 4.9), can be an effective strategy. This allows you to familiarize your audience with your data and visual first and then continue to leverage it in the manner illustrated.”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“Note how, within each, the preattentive attribute grabs your attention, and how some attributes draw your eyes with greater or weaker force than others (for example, color and size are attention grabbing, whereas italics achieve a milder emphasis).”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“By combining the visual and verbal, we set ourselves up for success when it comes to triggering the formation of long-term memories in our audience.”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“Short-term memory Short-term memory has limitations. Specifically, people can keep about four chunks of visual information in their short-term memory at a given time. This means that if we create a graph with ten different data series that are ten different colors with ten different shapes of data markers and a legend off to the side, we’re making our audience work very hard going back and forth between the legend and the data to decipher what they are looking at.”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“Generally, diagonal elements such as lines and text should be avoided. They look messy and, in the case of text, are harder to read than their horizontal counterparts. When it comes to the orientation of text, one study (Wigdor & Balakrishnan, 2005) found that the reading of rotated text 45 degrees in either direction was, on average, 52% slower than reading normally oriented text (text rotated 90 degrees in either direction was 205% slower on average). It is best to avoid diagonal elements on the page.”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“Alignment The single change having the biggest impact in the preceding before-and-after example was the shift from center-aligned to left-justified text. In the original version, each block of text on the page is center-aligned. This does not create clean lines either on the left or on the right, which can make even a thoughtful layout appear sloppy. I tend to avoid center-aligned text for this reason.”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“We’ll discuss six principles here: proximity, similarity, enclosure, closure, continuity, and connection.”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“Don’t show the second y-axis. Instead, label the data points that belong on this axis directly. Pull the graphs apart vertically and have a separate y-axis for each (both along the left) but leverage the same x-axis across both. Figure 2.27 illustrates these options. Figure 2.27 Strategies for avoiding a secondary y-axis”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“Horizontal bar chart If I had to pick a single go-to graph for categorical data, it would be the horizontal bar chart, which flips the vertical version on its side. Why? Because it is extremely easy to read. The horizontal bar chart is especially useful if your category names are long, as the text is written from left to right, as most audiences read, making your graph legible for your audience.”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“One thing to keep in mind with a table is that you want the design to fade into the background, letting the data take center stage. Don’t let heavy borders or shading compete for attention. Instead, think of using light borders or simply white space to set apart elements of the table.”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“3-minute story The 3-minute story is exactly that: if you had only three minutes to tell your audience what they need to know, what would you say? This is a great way to ensure you are clear on and can articulate the story you want to tell.”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“What would a successful outcome look like? If you only had a limited amount of time or a single sentence to tell your audience what they need to know, what would you say? In particular, I find that these last two questions can lead to insightful conversation.”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“Here are some action words to help act as thought starters as you determine what you are asking of your audience: accept | agree | begin | believe | change | collaborate | commence | create | defend | desire | differentiate | do | empathize | empower | encourage | engage | establish | examine | facilitate | familiarize | form | implement | include | influence | invest | invigorate | know | learn | like | persuade | plan | promote | pursue | recommend | receive | remember | report | respond | secure | support | simplify | start | try | understand | validate”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“If you simply present data, it’s easy for your audience to say, “Oh, that’s interesting,” and move on to the next thing. But if you ask for action, your audience has to make a decision whether to comply or not. This elicits a more productive reaction from your audience, which can lead to a more productive conversation—one that might never have been started if you hadn’t recommended the action in the first place.”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“What do you need your audience to know or do? This is the point where you think through how to make what you communicate relevant for your audience and form a clear understanding of why they should care about what you say.”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“Concentrate on the pearls, the information your audience needs to know.”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“When we’re at the point of communicating our analysis to our audience, we really want to be in the explanatory space, meaning you have a specific thing you want to explain, a specific story you want to tell—probably about those two pearls.”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“Exploratory analysis is what you do to understand the data and figure out what might be noteworthy or interesting to highlight to others.”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“Who is your audience? What do you need them to know or do? This chapter describes the importance of understanding the situational context, including the audience, communication mechanism, and desired tone.”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“Never again will you simply show data. Rather, you will create visualizations that are thoughtfully designed to impart information and incite action.”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“The unique thing you get with a pie chart is the concept of there being a whole and, thus, parts of a whole. But if the visual is difficult to read, is it worth it? In”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“Beyond annoying our audience by trying to sound smart, we run the risk of making our audience feel dumb. In either case, this is not a good user experience for our audience. Avoid”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

“Having all the information in the world at our fingertips doesn’t make it easier to communicate: it makes it harder. The more information you’re dealing with, the more difficult it is to filter”
― Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals