We are all data visualisation users on a daily basis. Understanding and interpreting data visualisations are some of the most important aspects of data literacy for business users in this day and age.
In the recent webinar organised by FIBEP, based on our experience, Amrita Sidhu (Managing Director, Medianet) and I (Raina Lazarova) covered the basics and examples from our businesses, as well as great examples from outside the business. We believe that when done well, data visualisation ensures that stakeholders can quickly grasp critical insights from data and base decisions on it.
The power of data visualisation lies in presenting aggregated versions of numbers so that you can see the information you want in milliseconds. Dive in as I share key takeaways from the webinar.
What makes an effective data visualisation?
Here are some insights borrowed from Andy Cotgreave, Senior Data Evangelist at Tableau Software & co-author of the amazing book “The Big Book of Dashboards”.
There are four levers you’re trying to pull and push when designing a data visualisation:
1. Is your objective to provide a large amount of detail or just provide the gist of the information?
2. Is this chart going to be fun or is it serious?
3. Are you trying to show something where people will be able to explore the data or are you trying to explain a story you’ve already found?
4. Is your visualisation formatted honestly or is it formatted in a deceptive way?
For example, if you’re delivering a presentation to the Board and I know a slide will be on screen for about 2 seconds, you have very little time to convey a small amount of information. A successful chart is super simple with an in-your-face message.
Contrast that with a business user with time to explore business data on a dashboard you built. That dashboard can have ten different charts on it, some of them can have loads of data points, and some of them may have interactions that create a story and a flow. In that case, it can be very complicated, it’s an explorative experience.
If you take that complicated dashboard and put it on a PowerPoint in the scenario described in the first example with 2 seconds of time on your side, and then you move on, that great dashboard will obviously not be effective for that situation.
Finding your data's story: the art of narrative in data
Data and visualisation is just another story to tell. It’s important to learn how to sift through data to uncover compelling stories that resonate with your audience, enhancing your ability to communicate complex information effectively.
Effective story arcs are the ones that can guide the reader / viewer through the change in value, through the change of all the important points in the journey, explaining what’s happening with the data in a way that strengthens the viewer’s understanding and impacts, driving an outcome. The human element (talent) is crucial here to help “tell and sell” the story of the data, whether it’s visualised or not.
When choosing the right data visualisation type, the most important element to consider is whether you’re offering people the opportunity to see insights they haven’t seen or experienced before and wouldn’t otherwise be able to decipher in written text alone. You need to ask yourself what outcome you are looking for from this story. Are you trying to persuade a decision maker to take action, or are you simply aiming to educate and empower them to draw their own conclusions?
The power of dashboards
Dashboards are a common and important format in our industry that we deal with on a daily basis. A dashboard is a collection of data visualisations/charts aimed at answering a specific set of questions. The most important question when designing a dashboard is what your audience wants to see and how they are going to use it. Here are key questions you want to answer before you embark on creating a dashboard:
What is your objective?
- Best practice is to go and speak with the user, understand what they want, why they want it, how they are going to use it, and then create a really basic protype and from there iterate.
- The purpose of communication is to persuade; PR is about communicating the right message to the right audience at the right time to achieve an objective.
- Think of your storytelling as a path that leads to an understanding of the objective, and your data is the map that acts as the guide along that path.
Interactive or static?
A good starting point is determining whether the dashboard needs to be interactive. If it will be interactive, you need to ensure that your users understand how to navigate the dashboard and how to utilise the platform—be it MS Power BI, Tableau, Qlik.
Eye-tracking studies on dashboards reveal that people often overlook filters and fail to interact with them. It’s essential to ensure that users engage with the dashboard effectively and understand how to use it to derive insights.
What is the form of delivery?
Consider how the audience will consume the dashboard. Will it primarily be viewed on a large screen, a mobile phone, or delivered via email?
Email remains a significant communication tool for professionals. Therefore, if you intend to embed data visuals into key deliverables such as coverage emails, media reviews, or reports, it’s crucial to consider these constraints.
Beyond the industry
Here is some inspiration from best practices with examples from outside of our industry. Get a fresh perspective on how to innovate and captivate with your data visualisations.
There’s no one size fits all
Knowing your data, your customer, and your audience matters in crafting visualisations that are not only informative but also impactful and audience-specific. For example, the dashboard a CEO needs is fundamentally different from the dashboard an Account Executive needs.
In a communications context, consider the varying needs of the PR team, the VP of Comms, and the Supervisory Board or Board of Directors. While communication teams might appreciate detailed information, the C-suite often lacks the time or capacity to delve into such depth. Thus, having the ability to generate various outputs and deliverables with the user in mind—considering the breadth of data, delivery frequency, format, and level of interactivity—becomes crucial. Reflect on the different use cases and objectives these audiences have and design the dashboard accordingly. This might entail creating three distinct versions of the same media performance or communications measurement dashboard, and that’s perfectly acceptable.
Wrap it up
In this webinar, we aimed to highlight the importance of providing a pleasurable and engaging experience, ensuring that the dashboard is user-friendly. We emphasised the need to create impactful visualisations that effectively convey meaningful insights to the audience. Lastly, the webinar underscored the significance of considering load times, especially when designing complex and interactive dashboards, as intricate designs may lead to prolonged loading times, potentially compromising the user experience. With all this said, we hope to have inspired your data visualisation journey and that this knowledge brings new outcomes to your clients and business.
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