What Is Data Visualization & How Does It Aid Storytelling?

 What is data visualization?

Business data visualization is the creative use of data and statistics to show patterns, draw conclusions about a hypothesis, or prove a theory that can help an organization make decisions.

Why does storytelling using data visualization matter?

Telling a great story based on data can be helpful for both your stakeholders and your customers. It can help your organization make better decisions and also get more customers to buy from you. Using Business Intelligence data visualization to discover important things about your customers and their wants can help you find new leads and keep old ones.

How do you do it?

To create a story using a data visualization dashboard, you must first figure out what information is most important. It can be easier to understand statistics if you sort out the useless information. Once you've decided what's most important to show, you can turn it into a picture. 

One of the most important parts of marketing is knowing your audience; data helps you do that. If it's the stakeholder, it's a good idea to talk about how you got leads and how they turned into sales. 

To know your audience, you must first learn how to read and use your data. What question or problem are you trying to answer or solve?

How to engage in storytelling with data visualization?

1. Begin the narrative

Start with a problem or a question to answer. Consider what information you'll need to answer the question. Find out what your audience will get out of the problem you're trying to solve. After all, what is data visualization if not neatly stacked data stories? 

2. Know your readers

When making charts and graphs, you should let the people who will learn something from them lead the way. You should know the following:

• The information they already know

• What will they get out of your visualizations?

• How your audience will use your insights to decide what to do. Or, to put it more simply, how they handle the data from Business Intelligence data visualization.

3. Tell an interesting story

Make sure that everyone in your audience is interested and understands what you want to say. People remember stories and pictures, not dull facts, as we've already talked about and seen. Use your visuals to take them on a journey.

4. More visuals, less text

‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ should be your new motto for business data visualization. If you want your audience to understand metrics, trends, and patterns, use graphs instead of a 40-page report. As little text as possible should be used. Use only words and labels to make your charts make sense. 

5. Make it clear

Business analysts can do a lot with the raw data they are given. The more features there are in the data, the more conclusions can be drawn. But make sure the story you tell with the data is clear and concise.

6. Look at how things were in the past

Many results are also easier to understand if they can be put next to each other. No matter what you do, give your comparison some background. Compare it to the company's own standards, how it has done in the past, or even how a competing business has done.

7. End on a high note

There is no perfect number of graphs or charts that will make your data visualization dashboard interesting. If your story doesn't teach anyone anything, it's not worth telling. Make sure you've given the correct answers.

Closing Words-

To empower your teams with Grow’s data visualization dashboard, read more on Capterra grow.com.