Storytelling with Data - Let's Practice
A companion guide to the original bestseller “Storytelling with Data”, this book offers you ample opportunities to PRACTICE your data storytelling skills.
This book by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic brings your data storytelling skills to the next level. It’s best to use it in conjunction with the original book “Storytelling with Data: a data visualisation guide for business professionals”. The number and breadth of the exercises and additional resources is extraordinary, and the brilliant thing is that the core principles of storytelling with data discussed in the original book are summarised with the help of great visuals at the beginning of each chapter. What’s more, I believe that the key steps introduced for Storytelling with Data are applicable to preparing any other impactful communication, for example, a job interview, a campaign, etc.
Chapter One. Understand the Context
A crucial initial step not to be missed. By thinking about our audience, message, and components of context upfront, we have a better chance to create impactful data visualizations. The planning process focuses on three aspects:
Considering our audience: who they are and what they care about
Crafting and refining our main message: what is the Big Idea?
Planning content: storyboarding to follow a plot arc. Stay low tech during this step.
Chapter Two. Choose an Effective Visual
There is no single “right” answer and choosing an effective visual can take a lot of iterations.
Chapter Three. Identify and Eliminate Clutter
Every element we add to the visuals increases the cognitive burden. Get rid of the stuff that does not aid our understanding.
Chapter Four. Focus Attention
Guide the attention of your audience: where to look and in which order.
Chapter Five. Think Like a Designer
You recognize great design when you see it, but how do you achieve it? The following four principles can help you think like a designer:
affordance: things we do to make it clear how to process what we show
aesthetics: great visuals can translate into people taking more time with your work or having the patience to overlook issues.
accessibility: creating designs usable by people of different skills and abilities.
acceptance: our designs work only if the audience accepts them.
Chapter Six. Tell a Story
Data in a spreadsheet or facts of a slide aren’t things that naturally stick with us. Stories are memorable. Pairing the potency of story with effective visuals means that our audience can recall what they heard or read in addition to what they saw.
