What are some best practices and tips for using interactive and dynamic visuals in presentations and reports?

1 Define your purpose and audience

Before you create any interactive or dynamic visual, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to communicate and who you are communicating to. What is the main message or question you want to answer? What are the most relevant and important data points or variables? How familiar is your audience with the topic, the data, and the visual format? These questions will help you decide on the type, scope, and level of interactivity and dynamism of your visual.

2 Choose the right visual format

There are many types of interactive and dynamic visuals, such as sliders, filters, animations, maps, dashboards, and charts. Each one has its own advantages and limitations, depending on the data and the story you want to tell. For example, sliders and filters can help you compare different subsets or dimensions of the data, animations can show trends or patterns over time, maps can show spatial relationships or distributions, dashboards can provide a comprehensive overview or drill-down of the data, and charts can show correlations or comparisons. You should choose the visual format that best suits your purpose and audience, and avoid using too many or too complex visuals that might overwhelm or confuse them.

3 Design for clarity and simplicity

Once you have chosen the visual format, you need to design it for clarity and simplicity. This means using appropriate colors, labels, legends, scales, and titles to make your visual easy to read and understand. You should also avoid clutter, noise, or unnecessary elements that might distract from the main message or data. For interactive and dynamic visuals, you should also provide clear instructions, feedback, and navigation to help your audience interact with and explore the visual. You should also test your visual for functionality, accuracy, and usability before you present or share it.

4 Tell a story with your visual

Finally, you should use your interactive and dynamic visual to tell a story with your data. This means using narration, annotations, highlights, or transitions to guide your audience through the visual and explain the key insights or findings. You should also use questions, scenarios, or examples to engage your audience and invite them to interact with and learn from the visual. You should also provide context, background, or sources for your data and visual to establish credibility and trust. By telling a story with your interactive and dynamic visual, you can make your presentation or report more memorable, impactful, and persuasive.

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?