Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals by Cole Nussbaumer KnaflicMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
An absolute MUST READ for everyone that has to convey information and to make it actionable.
If you want to improve your competences to disclose data and turn into information and actionable insights, you cannot miss this book, that take you in a journey on how to improve your "game".
The gold nuggets I took for myself while reading this book are the following:
1. The need to clearly segregate the exploratory phase from the explanatory phase of your work (simple but very insightful for me).
2. Clearly know before you start the variables and features that should be taken into consideration, knowing that you key goal is the action you want to promote or insights you want to convey.
3. the pivotal importance to choose the correct visual representation to convey your message~.
4. promote the usage of graphs (always go for the visual system of your audience vs. verbal system)
5. clutter in your presentation is your worst enemy
6.focus the attention of your audience attention by using the 3 types of memory (Iconic, Short, and Log-term) and by deploying preattentive visual attributes on text and graphs
7. use key concepts of design (affordance, accessibility, aesthetics, acceptance) in order to improve the chances to achieve your goals.
8. should actively manage the: graph choices, data order, understand where the audience eyes are drawn to, usage of strategies to emphasize and de-emphasize components, usage of color, thickness and size, alignment and position, titling and annotation.
9. know and use the key characteristics of a good story and it is structured and make it as clear as possible - horizontal and vertical logic.
My highlighted quotes:
1. "...Being able to visualize data and tell stories with it is key to turning it into information that can be used to drive better decision making..."
2. "...An effective data visualization can mean the difference between success and failure when it comes to communicating the findings of your study, raising money for your nonprofit, presenting to your board, or simply getting your point across to your audience. ..."
3. "...Those hired into analytical roles typically have quantitative backgrounds that suit them well for the other steps (finding the data, pulling it together, analyzing it, building models), but not necessarily any formal training in design to help them when it comes to the communication of the analysis—which, by the way, is typically the only part of the analytical process that your audience ever sees. ..."
4."...Exploratory analysis is what you do to understand the data and figure out what might be noteworthy or interesting to highlight to others ..."
5. "...explanatory (taking the time to turn the data into information that can be consumed by an audience: the two pearls)..."
6. "...You should always want your audience to know or do something..."
7. "...The storyboard establishes a structure for your communication. It is a visual outline of the content you plan to create. ..."
8. "...To reduce this mental processing, we can use color saturation to provide visual cues, helping our eyes and brains more quickly target the potential points of interest. ..."
9. "...graphs interact with our visual system, which is faster at processing information. ..."
10. "...you should avoid: pie charts, donut charts, 3D, and secondary y-axes..."
11. "...every single element you add to that page or screen takes up cognitive load on the part of your audience—in other words, takes them brain power to process. ..."
12. "...In general, identify anything that isn’t adding informative value—or isn’t adding enough informative value to make up for its presence—and remove those things. Identifying and eliminating such clutter is the focus of this chapter. ..."
13. "... “there is still some space left on that page, so let’s add something there,” or worse, “there is still some space left on that page, so let’s add more data.” No! Never add data just for the sake of adding data—only add data with a thoughtful and specific purpose in mind! ..."
14. "...Without other visual cues, most members of your audience will start at the top left of your visual or slide and scan with their eyes in zigzag motions across the screen or page. ..."
15. "...Form follows function [...] we first want to think about what it is we want our audience to be able to do with the data (function) and then create a visualization (form) that will allow for this with ease. ..."
16."... “You know you’ve achieved perfection, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing to take away” (Saint-Exupery, 1943). ..."
17. "...In data visualization—and communicating with data in general—spending time to make our designs aesthetically pleasing can mean our audience will have more patience with our visuals, increasing our chance of success for getting our message across. ..."
18. "...A good story grabs your attention and takes you on a journey, evoking an emotional response..."
19. "...two ways to persuade people: The first is conventional rhetoric[...] It’s an intellectual process. But it is problematic, because while you’re trying to persuade your audience, they are arguing with you in their heads. [...] The second way to persuade, according to McKee, is through story. Stories unite an idea with an emotion, arousing the audience’s attention and energy. Because it requires creativity, telling a compelling story is harder than conventional rhetoric. ..."
20. "...Keep it simple. Edit ruthlessly. Be authentic. Don’t communicate for yourself—communicate for your audience. ..."
21. "...The more the information is repeated or used, the more likely it is to eventually end up in long-term memory, or to be retained..."
22. "...The idea behind horizontal logic is that you can read just the slide title of each slide throughout your deck and, together, these snippets tell the overarching story you want to communicate..."
23. "...Vertical logic means that all information on a given slide is self-reinforcing...."
View all my reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment