Convert your data visualisation into data storytelling

Hans Rosling, the master of data storytelling, once explained that data visualization is like looking at musical notes, but you will not hear music just by looking at them. This great metaphor in a simple way differentiates data visualization from data storytelling.

When I think about how data serve us, they are only a bridge between our imagination or expectations and reality. They need a guide who reveals their shape and meaning to unlock their full potential. Everything depends on how comfortable we feel with numbers. Our main goal when we work with data shouldn’t be presenting numbers but highlighting the situation behind them, problems to address or opportunities we can leverage. Some people don’t have a natural instinct to read between data lines, while some do. Some people need a guide some don’t.

But at the beginning, I would like to dig into concerns about the differences between data visualisations and data storytelling. Many times, both terms are used interchangeably which is misleading. The biggest distinction between those two terms is that the first one focuses on displaying data in readable form, and the second is communicate insights and conclusions.

Data visualisation is simply displaying data. Our intention here is not to communicate information but to show data to receivers and give them the possibility to build their insights and conclusions. Data storytelling, on the other hand, is something totally counterparty. We, as authors, want to sell receivers one of the possible stories around a particular data set. However, that story can be more or less ethical or trustworthy, but I won’t touch that sensitive topic here – to go deeper into ethics in presenting data read this post.

Of course, like in the marketing world, we have some tips and tricks to sell our stories.

Narration

Narration is a game changer in communicating data findings. It is the heart of data storytelling. One data set can contain dozens of stories. What we pick up and how we tell about them depends on our goals. Storytelling is a very successful tool in communication or marketing. Humans crave stories from the beginning of our species. This is our natural way of passing messages mainly because it activates many parts of our brain like language processing, movement processing, and emotion processing. Due that engaged processes we can remember things easier.

Visual attributes

How we frame the story will affect how this story will be displayed. Yes, displayed. In data storytelling, we use all visual attributes to get a message across to our audience. The main part is to properly link the message with what is presented. We use colours, shapes, positions, and text to focus or guide the audience’s attention.

Let’s get through the basics of visual narration.

In the above picture, the same data set is displayed. However, with a totally different intention. On the left side, data is presented by categories (social interactions) on the timeline (age). Interpretation is on the audience’s side. The audience can craft their own stories based on their feelings, expectations, and experiences.

On the right, the data set is filtered by author lenses. The author focuses only on one of the categories – time spent alone and presents the positive aspect of the fact that when we age, we have more time for ourselves. To promote this thesis, she exposed the category “Alone” with orange colour and combined the rest of the categories into one and painted them with neutral grey colour. Due to this technique, the category “Alone” is pushed out to the foreground for paying the viewers’ attention. Furthermore, the category “Alone” is placed first from the visualization baseline, so we can see the increasing trend over time. A thoughtful title is important as well to influence how we interpret the whole visualisation.

Narration over narration

The author’s thesis presented above is positive. Can we turn it into a negative one? Let’s compare below two examples.

Again, the same data set is used. By implementing various techniques, we can play on people’s emotions to evoke different outlooks of the presented information.

On the left, the bright, optimistic colour orange is used to emphasise the advantages of the situation. However, the example on the right gives us another impression. Blue colour, often joined with sadness, bars falling as streams of rain from the sky upon someone’s head, and the pessimistic title leaves us without a doubt that being alone when you get older is nothing pleasant.

Is it manipulation? I didn’t change here data set or axis scale. I just move viewers’ focus and show another perspective. Nevertheless, I can leave the audience with counter feelings.

So, I’ll repeat here once again, it is your decision how to sell your data storytelling.

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Manage your business with Key Performance Indicators for Growth. My #7 principles.

Everyone has heard about key performance indicators – measures which give you a brief understanding of how your business operates and creates value for customers. Three essentials that each CEO is watching are revenue growth, costs and cash flow. But those KPIs are on the top of the iceberg. Underneath there are many other, much more strategic KPIs which can be revealed and can serve as a lighthouse to help you sail on restless seas and oceans to strengthen your resilience and reduce vulnerability. But the key question here is how to find them.

Have you heard about the concept of a strategy map? The strategy map is a simple visual tool that helps you decompose strategy objectives like “cost reduction by 5%” into smaller and manageable ones like “waiting time reduction by 3%”. It presents logical, cause-and-effect relations between objectives and clarifies the value stream through domains like finance, production, people, technology etc. The power of this tool is to present business strategy on a very tangible level and what is more, provide a transparent way to achieve it.

https://balancedscorecard.org/bsc-basics/what-is-a-strategy-map/

However, you will not be able to control your objectives without proper measures. Those measures we call Key Performance Indicators – KPIs. Below I am presenting my top seven principles for KPIs that must be met.

KPIs are like a compass

Do you have your strategic objectives already shaped? Wonderful. Do you know how to measure them for driving growth? Each of the established objectives should be followed by one well-defined and tailored KPI. I would be far from creating various KPIs for one objective and then linking them for making sense of it. Simplification is a buzzword here for not losing crucial metrics from your radar.  Too many will only distract you and blur the straight interpretation.

KPIs reflect business dynamics

The next thing worth remembering about KPIs is that they must be dynamic. KPI which doesn’t change frequently is totally useless, especially in a fast-moving business environment. Your resilience is as good as you can react to appearing obstacles and disruption. Ideally, you should be able to track progress daily to make adequate decisions.

KPIs are standardized across the organization

Standardization is your ally to ensure that people are looking from the same perspective or seeing the same picture. Keep handy, for all users, KPIs’ descriptions, and examples of how they can leverage them at work to improve performance. Due that people within your organization can use a common language and easily discuss chances and challenges in achieving similar results.

KPIs show what “good enough” means

Maybe it is not very political, but targets or goals should not be stretched. They should be realistic. Maybe you would say that to be successful you must be very ambitious, but frequent setbacks might have a very negative influence on your and others’ motivation (read more about the topic in my previous post). The experience of achieving goals strengthens people’s confidence, which might flourish as an improvement for future performance.

KPIs are easily accessible

If you want people to start using a specific tool or device, you do not hide it, do you? On the market, there are plenty of reporting platforms or software that can provide people with direct and easy access to information. Links to those tools should be placed on the intranet in a visible place. In addition, the information about reporting system should be included within onboarding materials.

KPIs are communicated

Sounds obvious, right? Often, it is not. Many times, even though we have KPIs and strategies in place, our employees are not aware of them. Some ideas stay on the management level, and they are not cascaded down. Regarding the strategy and goals, the organization should keep in the loop all employees, because everyone participates in its growth, and everyone is needed to create a value stream for customers. Because success is nothing more like the sum of small efforts and small steps achieve daily by individuals.

KPIs are used on daily basis.

Last but not least. Finally, people must feel the benefit of checking KPIs daily in making better decisions and choices. This is the hardest part of the entire process. Changing people’s habits and behaviours is not piece of cake (here you will find some strategies for change management). Design processes in a way to force people to use KPIs. Otherwise, you can spend billions on developing a new strategy and implementing new technology, and all those efforts would be a waste, just because nobody is interested in using it.