Boost conversions with compelling, data-oriented stories about your products and services
Capture Your Audience’s Attention through Data Storytelling
When you see a great play, watch a captivating movie, or read a fantastic book, you have experienced the magic of storytelling. A good story grabs your attention and takes you on a journey, evoking an emotional response. In the middle of it, you find yourself not wanting to turn away or put it down. This also happens with data storytelling. Every small or medium-sized business (SMB) has a story, and it can be told through data.
Why Data Storytelling?
To make sense of data, you need visualizations that carry a message that your audience cares about. An impactful story told through data can optimize a SMB, but your visualizations must be clear and easy to interpret. For that, follow three simple principles: Choose charts familiar with the general public, be a ruthless minimalist, and provide clear key takeaways.
How to Tell A Story with Data Analytics
1. Highlight Difference and Contrast
It is crucial to choose the data you want to show, define the most important KPIs, and think about the way you want to show them. In fact, there are two things that people immediately notice: contrast and patterns.
At first glance you can only decipher a bunch of numbers and data. But, as you start adding more contrast with colors, you can see information that you couldn’t see clearly before.
2. Be Clear and Use Predictable Colors
A great storyteller will have one message that is effortlessly understood. Use conventional colors and graphs. For example, red means hot, blue means cold, or green is positive, and red is negative and so forth. Our visualizations and stories become much more easy to understand when we use these conventions.
3. Any Chart Tells a Story. Choose the Best One.
EXHIBIT A: Bar chart vs. Line chart for Trend Analysis
Bar Chart: Another key point, you are analyzing the amount of sales versus the amount of profits by month. This chart is difficult to read.
Line Chart: Here you can clearly see the difference between sales and profits by month.
EXHIBIT B: Bar Chart vs. Ribbon Chart for Trend Analysis by Region
Bar Chart: In this example, you want to analyze sales by year and region. Perhaps there is a better way to visualize these data.
Ribbon Chart: Next, a ribbon chart seems to provide insights quicker and in a more meaningful way. It is effectively demonstrating change in rank by region over time, with the highest value always displayed on top for each year. With this chart, you can clearly see that the central region has become the region with the most sales over time (2010-2013).
4. Follow the Basic Rules of Design (S.C.R.A.P)
This method, extended from the C.R.A.P. design methodology by Reid Havens, serves to convey a good story through our data. You must follow the five steps and apply them in the design of our reports and dashboards:
- Spacing: spaces must be respected both within the graphic and between visualizations.
- Contrast: applying colors to highlight something instead of having monochromatic reports will focus users’ attention on those key points.
- Repetition: applying the same font, font size, design schemes, etc. implies a certain order in the design of the report, which provides clarity to the audience.
- Alignment: it is very important that the visualizations are ordered and aligned. A cluttered report can have a very unfavorable impact, since it leads the reader to focus their attention on those details instead of on the information.
- Proximity: another key point, visual objects related to each other should be close together rather than far apart. Humans prefer to see similar items together. The simpler and more intuitive it is for the end user, the better their experience will be.
Connect with the Experts
Data analytics help you to better understand your customers and to shape your marketing to increase conversions. Telling the story about your SMB and the value you bring to your customers can be made more compelling with data represented with intuitive visuals. Experts like Parallel Analytica empower SMBs to find the right data engineering tools for their business and develop the most impactful ways to tell your business story through data.
Schedule a consultation today to find out how Parallel Analytica can help your organization unlock insights using your own data.
Subscribe to our Medium blog and follow us at the links below.